Paris

An Expat Interview and a Mini-Rant About Ghosting People

October 16, 2019November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

When you have a blog, you throw your website address up in all kinds of dark corners of the internet. When you're an expat with a blog, you register your blog site with various expat sites. It's just a thing you do. Late last year, the content editor from one of those sites contacted me out of the blue asking me to contribute to their series of expat interviews. In essence, she'd send me a questionnaire and I'd take time off from banging around in my own wordsmithy to write her something for free in addition to sending some of my photos so as to provide content for her website.Truthfully, I don't mind doing things like this. I like doing things like this. However, Content Editor ghosted after I'd sent her the completed interview. That seemed pretty rude, but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. People lose track of things, they get overwhelmed with life, or...

These Days, I’m Totally Cool With Being a Goat-Eating White Trash Princess Barbie

March 12, 2018November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

If I were ranking each decade of my life, my 40s would have the top score. It's a comfortable place of knowing myself better than ever before, and full-blown adulthood is an achievement that brings rewards previously unimagined. It's a strange time of contradictions where I give fewer shits, but care more deeply. I still feel outrage and anger, but find that it isn't channeled the same way, and is focused on different targets. I'm wiser, but am still learning and pay attention to the lessons with greater awareness. I'm better equipped to know which battles to fight, and which to let go. And why.In 2003, the couple living next door began calling me "Barbie" soon after we met. I'm like a Barbie doll, they say. I shake my head, and tell them they're wrong. I love hanging out with these two women. We open the doors of our apartments and sit on the steps, the three of us drinking...

A Story About Expat Depression and How I Might Be a Wizard

January 25, 2018November 23, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

When you move to another country, the whirlwind of emotions begins to wreak havoc before you even take the suitcase out of the closet. Anticipation. Fear. Sadness. The entire spectrum from a childlike eagerness all the way to paralyzing despair. Trading in home, friends, family, your native language, and all that is safe, comfortable, and familiar for a strange and uncertain future is scary, but exciting. Profoundly exciting. I often deal with complex emotions and challenges in one of three ways: 1) writing about them 2) completely avoiding them with chemicals and escapist entertainment 3) Googling the shit out of every aspect and detail until I fill my brain with enough information to comfort myself, or ignite a full-on freak out.In 2005, I scoured the Internets and found mountains of bullshit about what moving to Paris is like for an American. Intimidating bullshit that made me feel like a sewer rat. These blogs and sites were written by people very...

Here’s a Story About How to Stop Eating Bullshit

March 1, 2017March 1, 2017 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

Passports are amazing. In 1998, when I received my first passport, it was as though I had a golden ticket that could take me anywhere. I flipped through the pages, dreaming of all the stamps that would one day fill this little blue-covered book. I was an insecure twenty-something who graduated from high school two years late and had just been fired from my low-paying factory job. People like me didn't travel. People like me only visited far away places in books and movie screens. That's what I believed. So, it was funny that I had a round-trip ticket to London, a packed bag, and a Let's Go! guide to Britain under my arm.Other countries were an intimidating and weird magic. I wanted to experience that.During that adventure, I explored various parts of England and Scotland. I took the Eurostar to Paris. I rode the métro. I made an ass of myself. I talked with strangers, got lost, rained on,...

Lessons From a Dollhouse: Longing For a Smaller Life

April 12, 2016November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

My grandfather gave me the dollhouse right about the time my brain began to form lasting memories. He'd built the entire thing himself, with his own two hands. My mother, the oldest of four children, was the first to give her parents a grandchild, so I was a big deal. My grandparents spoiled me in the usual ways, but the dollhouse held the most meaning. Within each piece of tiny furniture there existed a universe of adoration. Every small human figure and carefully cut piece of fabric, another echo of love from my grandfather to me.A few years later, my mother and I moved halfway across the country. I could only take with me a few things that would fit in the car. The dollhouse, with most of our other possessions, remained in my grandparents' garage."We'll come back for that stuff later," my mother said. "We'll rent a U-haul and move it all into our new house when we find...

Living on the Periphery of Terrible Things

November 20, 2015November 30, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

It's been a week since Hell hit Paris, and those French flag profile pics on social media are already starting to go away. They won't vanish as swiftly as they appeared. They'll decrease in number, little by little, just like those rainbows from a few months ago. Those rainbows made me happy. I enjoyed opening up my timeline and seeing the burst of color. We'd fought for equality and won. This is how we shout things from the rooftops, now. This was our happiness, translated to small, digital images.Of course, seeing some people ranting about the greatness of the Confederate flag from a rainbow profile made it clear that many didn't give a shit about (or comprehend) equality as much as they do following the photo filter herd while screeching about what they want.Yeah, I got cynical. I forced myself to focus on those I knew were genuinely shouting with pure joy, and I felt better.When the French flag filter...