Rasmenia

In July of 2005, I went to see Batman Begins at the Holiday Twin drive-in in Fort Collins, CO with a friend of mine. We’d been bouncing around in anticipation for several months waiting for this movie to come out. Leaning forward in the front seat of my Oldsmobile, we shoveled snacks into our faces & geeked out. She was one of my geek girl friends. Getting excited for superhero/fantasy/action movies, standing in line to see them, then jabbering excitedly about them afterward was something that connected us.

Many people have been brought together by things much less awesome.

We weren’t on Myspace. We didn’t have Facebook. We talked in person, over plates of food & big glasses filled with adult beverages. We chatted at the office where we both worked. It didn’t matter much that she was a Conservative, Christian gun owner from Texas, or that I was basically the exact opposite of all those things.

Sure, we gave each other shit about it. We made a lot of jokes. We also asked each other a lot of questions & somehow, it worked out fine.

Fast forward to 2008. I’ve left Colorado to live in France. The sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, had been released. I saw it at a movie theater in Paris with my husband. Barack Obama was about to be elected president. Like many of my friends, I had an account on Myspace, which I was getting fed up with. I joined Facebook in 2007 & preferred the clean, quiet of Facebook, as opposed to the glittery, .gif-ridden shouting & bickering of Myspace.

It was right around this time that the pro-Sarah Palin posts from my Conservative Geek Girl friend started showing up. We’d kept in touch through various places on the Internet since my move & up til then, most of the posts I saw were geeky & personal fragments that I was interested in seeing. Yes, I want to see your vacation pics. I am interested in looking at entire photo albums of your new hairdo, or that weird thing on your cat’s neck. Yes. Absolutely.

Or, whatever’s going on here. Yes. This is interesting.

What I wasn’t interested in seeing was right-wing propaganda from websites stating that the U.S. should put Arabs & Muslims in interment camps.

I feel very strongly about this because I detest hateful, racist bullshit. It also hit too close to home. My last name is Arabic. I chose to take this name when I married my half-French, half-Arab husband.

So there it was… the first friendship I had that crumbled as a result of social networking stupidity.

Could we have talked it out? Maybe. If I were more of a talking-out kind of person & could rid myself of doubt – if I could look at her without wondering if she would be okay with my husband being put in some fucking interment camp.

Nah, for me, it’s sometimes easier to just tell someone to stay the hell away from me. I know many people say that “life is short” & “don’t burn bridges” & some other clichéd shit about how it’s bad to sever friendships, but I feel that life is too short to spend it being surrounded by ignorant, bigoted shits who piss me off.

If you disagree, then you’re more patient than I am. Good for you. You’re nice. I’m mean. You’re the winner. I’m okay with that.

Since then, I’ve fired more friends. Some them I didn’t know very well. When someone I never have any contact with is posting horrible things online & our only common link is that we both come from the same shitty little town, it’s easy to unfriend them. It’s also unlikely that they’ll care or even notice. They’ll just continue posting their nonsense.

Other times, it was people I’d known for 20+ years. Just because you went to high school together & got into some trouble together back in the day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re still friends – or that you even like one other at all.

In the past 5 years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve discovered where almost all of my friends stand on every single issue. I know who is for or against gay marriage. I know who thinks Obama is a gay, Kenyan-born Muslim bent on destroying America. I’ve been preached to, bitched at & insulted. I know who thinks being Palestinian or pro-choice is evil. I’ve heard why I shouldn’t eat meat, wheat, Oreos, Chick-fil-A, daisies & yellow snow.

And it works both ways. I’ve been deleted by at least two dozen people. Maybe it’s because I’m a godless, foul-mouthed, carnivorous, Obama-voting, pro-choice lover of gays & Palestinians & that I live in a wicked, socialist country like France. If none of those are reasons why, I have to assume it’s because of all the fart jokes & if you can’t handle fart jokes, then it’s probably for the best.

I try to refrain from the initial impulse to delete someone. That ‘hide’ button on Facebook is an excellent feature. But, a friend of mine recently pointed out: if I have to hide posts from people & I can’t stand anything they say, how can I call them my friend?

I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but it doesn’t seem reasonable to delete someone every single time I see a post that irritates me. So, I hide them. And sometimes, forget that they are even there at all. So, I guess when that happens, we’re not such good friends, right?

I’m not under any illusions about myself. I know I’ve posted things on Facebook or Twitter that someone didn’t like. Over the past year or so, I’ve refrained from sharing certain things on Facebook because my group of friends, while mostly like-minded thinkers, is still rather diverse, so I don’t want to force all of my opinions on everyone & don’t feel like dealing with the backlash & bitching.

I prefer to reserve most of that for this site, which people can visit only if they want to.

And there’s my main problem with the obnoxious & constant political & religious posts on Facebook – the assumption that everyone on your friend list wants to be force-fed your belief system & opinions. Go shout about those things on a personal blog, or on Twitter. Why fight with former classmates in front of your coworkers & relatives?

Filling everyone’s news feed with an endless stream of shitty Facebook memes about politics & religion will not convert anyone, or convince people with opposing viewpoints to come over to your side. This is like flashing a bunch of bumper stickers at someone instead of using your words. We don’t all live by the same set of social standards. Your rhetoric will not prompt me to start voting Republican, or to be okay with religion. (Yes, it works both ways, but this is my rant, so we’re looking at it from my viewpoint.)

Of course, if you tell an obnoxious poster to shut it, they’ll likely come back with something about their Freedom of Speech. This isn’t about your fucking 1st Amendment rights. It’s about common courtesy, recognizing the varying ideals of your friends, acquaintances & family members & making an effort not to inflame them.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t discuss things, but one of the nice things about Facebook is that not only can you hide what you don’t want to see, you can also hide what you don’t want others to see. Try putting more energy into playing nice & being courteous & a little less into trying to to shove your belief system down everyone’s throat.

Now here we are. The third movie of this Batman trilogy has been released & we all know what happened in Aurora, so I won’t even get into the details of that. Suffice it to say that being from Colorado, a huge fan of Batman & Christopher Nolan’s movies, it hit close to home. Reading the news hurt. Watching my Colorado friends trying to locate friends & loved ones hurt. Wondering if all of my friends were okay… it hurt.

It still hurts.

Before victims had been identified, before families had been notified, the rotten, repugnant ranting had started with people spouting off about their own political & religious agendas. The trolling & conspiracy theories popped up. My level of disgust & disdain is hard to articulate, but I can tell you that I’ve been making good use of that hide button recently.

I said to my husband, “It’s so damn annoying, all of this shit cluttering up my news feed: guns, the 2nd Amendment, religion, politics… aren’t you getting sick of it, too?”

Olivier, he shrugs. “I guess I would, but I don’t see much of that. Most of my friends aren’t Americans.”

I thought about this & he’s right. The people I have to hide, who do the most shouting, are Americans. So, Americans, why are we shouting like this? Why do we have such a useless fucking need to be right & convince others that our belief system is best? Why do we feel the need to make spontaneous announcements & sophistic arguments about what we think & why others are wrong for thinking something different? Unless the goal is to alienate a certain percentage of the people you’re acquainted with, I really don’t get it.

Would you go to a party with all the people you know & start randomly shouting about religion & politics, or would you just chat, laugh, have some snacks & a few cocktails?

Sometimes I miss the days when my news feed was filled with vacation photos, status updates about someone’s day, what they’re eating & whatever the hell that thing is on your cat’s neck.

There are certain places around the globe you can go to that just don’t seem real.  Standing before certain buildings, monuments & natural wonders can often be a very surreal experience, feeling less like a day out of real life & a lot more like being on a movie set.

Or, more accurately… in an actual movie.

Whenever I go to Washington D.C., it feels bizarre to me, as though I’ve been inserted into the middle of a news report, or some exciting action flick.  I’ve constantly got my eyes peeled for a bad guy to come tearing through the crowd, pursued by a determined hero with a pistol in his hand.  I periodically check the skies for aliens, who as we all know, only land in major cities with well-known buildings & monuments.

I have yet to see this during a trip to D.C.

As anyone can imagine, Paris is no different.  In fact, for Americans, it’s probably even more surreal.  Seeing something like the Eiffel Tower for the first time is an awesome experience.  I first saw it 12 years ago.  I’ve lived in France for almost 5 years & it still impresses me whenever I see it.  It’s something that I grew up seeing in movies, paintings & photographs of faraway places.

Every time I tuned in to my favorite TV show, there was Paris in the background.

It wasn’t a real place.  It was a character in a movie.  It was a fantasy, a place where fictional characters go to have adventures & fairy-tale romances of mythical proportions.

When I decided that I would be moving to Paris, my destination wasn’t a place of real-life or fictional fantasy.  The truth is, I was too caught up in the whirlwind to really think much about it either way.  So, I packed up my shit & headed for Paris – Montmartre, to be more precise.

You know Montmartre… you’ve seen it before, even if you haven’t ever been to France.

Well… just to name a few.

One thing I can say for a fact is, the Montmartre that I lived in had nothing to do with the Montmartre that I had seen in these movies.  In spite of the fact that I had seen my own front door in Amélie.

Montmartre is my favorite part of Paris. It’s multi-cultural, full of artists & bohemian types & definitely feels more… Parisian.  However, actually being there, living there amidst the day-to-day just doesn’t feel as quaint as movie Montmartre.

"I don't remember seeing so many cars or Americans in Amélie."

One of the first things I noticed after I moved in with Olivier was the blackness.  A layer of blackness on the walls, ceiling & windows.  Black shit every time I blew & picked my nose.  I freaked out.  I cleaned everything from top to bottom: wine bottles, book spines, windows, inside & out… little corners of shelves & baseboards all had to be sterilized & polished.  Once I got the entire place clean & had all of the black shit out of my nose, it was time to start over.

So… what was all of this nasty black crud?  Air pollution.  With the shit floating in the air, combined with the humidity, there would eventually be a residue that would stick to surfaces in our apartment & would of course, wreak havoc on sinuses.  Granted, being from a small town in northern Colorado, I was a bit hypersensitive to chunky black air.

But, at least life in Paris was tranquil, aside from that, right?

Uh… no.

Rush hour was especially fun, when hundreds of motorists would sit bumper to bumper on every street surrounding our apartment, honking their horns nonstop – I guess because if you honk a horn for 10 minutes straight, it can actually cause a traffic light to change colors, or can magically give the person in front of you the ability to drive their car through solid objects, allowing you to finally move.

The bar down the street, while it was a fun place to hang out, insured that we would always have plenty of shouting drunkies roaming about in the street below our bedroom window at 3am.

There were the upstairs neighbors, who enjoyed jumping up & down on the cardboard-thin divider between their apartment & ours, dancing to Bollywood music at midnight, blasting techno at 4am, or throwing parties on a Tuesday night.

Did I mention that behind our apartment were 2 schools?  Yep… a middle school & an elementary school.  Recess was deafening.

Quaint?  Tranquil?  Not exactly.  A movie-like fairy tale?  No fucking way.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much writing done during those 2 & a half years in Montmartre.

Sure, going for a walk around the area was nice from time to time… as long as you manage to avoid the countless herds of tourists.  The well-known stairs of Montmartre do indeed add to the charm & are undeniably picturesque… as long as you’re in good shape & are not in a rush to get somewhere.  Hopefully, you don’t mind being covered in sweat when you arrive, either.

I've found it helps to pack a bag of supplies.

I sometimes have to laugh when someone says to me, “Ooh!  Paris!  You’re so lucky!”  Sure, I am lucky.  I know this.  And there many things that I love about Paris.  But there is always that fucking problem about where the grass is greener.  When someone would say this to me, I would automatically think of driving my car on big, open highways in America, rather than standing around in a hot, dirty métro station.

Better yet is when you get to ride the métro with someone who shouts their hard luck story to everyone on the train, begging for money.  It’s staggering how often this happens.  Occasionally, there is some sort of urine surprise or passenger who seems like a plague victim, which is fun, too.

Many people, when they would say, “Ooh!  Paris!  You’re so lucky!” have images of the Eiffel Tower & shiny boats on the Seine swirling about in their heads.  During my 2 & a half years in Paris, I didn’t wake up & look out the window to a scene from a movie every morning.

Um... unless you're talking about that one where boring people get up & walk to work.

I woke up to real life – just as real & underwhelming as anywhere else.

While looking just as fabulous as anyone else.

Paris is a big city.  Not as far as the amount of land that it sits on, but definitely as far as everything that is inside of it.  There are millions of people all smooshed together.  There isn’t the level of crime compared to a place like New York City, but it’s there, right along with the graffiti, hordes of hobos, street toughs, air & noise pollution.  Most of the movies imported to the U.S. don’t show you that & it’s easy to get deluded.

Of course, in spite of my cynicism & shattered delusions of movie set Paris, I’m still keeping my eyes peeled when I’m in the vicinity of surreal locations with great monuments because you know… when the shit goes down, that’s where it’ll happen.  Aliens & bad guys love big cities with famous monuments.

Since we’ve moved out of Paris to the suburbs, it’s been a relief.  Less noise, less black shit to extract from my nose – unless I’ve spent the day in the city – & my serenity level has been restored to normal.  As you might imagine, French life outside of Paris is just as quaint as you’ve seen on TV & movies.  Yep… every day is pretty much like this:

I used to laugh at germaphobic freaks like me.  I’d see them with their Lysol, alcohol pads & sanitizing gel, talking about “that bug that’s been going around” & I would shake my head & laugh.

Paranoid freaks.

Sitting at my desk, in the office where I worked, I’d watch my coworkers as they passed around a can of Lysol.  “Keep that shit away from me,” I’d tell them.  When someone would offer me an alcohol pad to wipe the germs away from the receiver of my phone, I would reply with a “thanks, but I like my phone dirty”.

Happily swimming in bacteria soup.

I was a drinking, pack-a-day smoker, happily surrounded by millions of dirty microscopic organisms & I enjoyed watching my coworkers sniff, sneeze & hack among the sound of misting Lysol.

Not because I’m that sadistic, but because I never got sick.

Then I moved to Paris.

Once I moved to Paris, I moved about the city the same way as millions of other Parisians: public transportation.  Gone were the days of leaving my apartment & going directly to my car.  My ass was now walking – rain or shine, night & day.  I was taking buses & trains, standing around at bus stops & in the métro stations… surrounded by people.

Gone, too, were the wide open spaces of Small Town, Colorado.  No more room to spread out.  No more personal space of at least one foot.

At first, I didn’t think much of it.  But, over time, as I began to feel more & more like a fucking sardine, something happened.  It started out small: a tiny cough from the back of the bus.  A sniffle from someone passing me on the street.  A sneeze from somewhere in the métro station.

The cacophony of illness grew louder as someone sitting across from me on the train would blast a thick wad of something from inside their face into a tissue.  The person sitting next to me would cough & gargle.  Someone standing up would sniff, wipe their nose with their bare hand, then grab hold of the pole that had 5 other hands wrapped around it.

Occasionally, while walking down the street, I would step over a pile of dog or pigeon shit, or a puddle of piss that had could have come from… well, anything.

The first year I spent in Paris, I was sick several times.  I was coughing on my wedding day.  It seemed as though I just couldn’t get away from it.  I began washing my hands with the frequency of a hardcore OCD case & making extra efforts not to touch anything when I went out in public.

Now… shopping carts terrify me.  The pole in the métro is a horrifying menace.  Every bus, train, ATM machine button & doorknob is a SARS or goddamn swine flu trying to take me out.  The stranger with the sniffles on the street is worse than a creature from a John Carpenter film.

At least HE isn't going to give me a fucking cold.

I’ve started carrying that damn hand sanitizing gel with me just about everywhere, though I really don’t use it all that much since I’ve gotten so good at not touching things.  You would be amazed at what I can accomplish by using only my elbows.

Children hold a special kind of terror.  When we go out & I see the snot on their faces, or their fingers shining with a fresh sheen of drool, I slowly back away, careful to make no sudden movements.

After two years of living in Paris, we moved just outside of the city.  While it’s less crowded for me now & I see fewer members of the snot-spewing public on a daily basis, I still take certain precautions, especially around someone who is suspect.  If I hear a sniff, snuffle or throat clearing, I am on high alert.

I've just gone to DEFCON 2.

So… over time, leaving the spread-out population of northern Colorado & immersing myself in the big city eventually turned me into a bit of a germaphobe.  I somehow went from being carefree & rubbing my filthy, bacteria-encrusted phone against my face to being one of the paranoid freaks ready to toss myself into a fucking Silkwood shower upon returning home from a routine trip to the grocery store.

In short, I have turned into this: