One of the Many Things I Learned from My Dog

One of the Many Things I Learned from My Dog

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
Human beings have a weird tendency to project ridiculous ideals on themselves. Until someone or something sets them straight and they learn to embrace and live with who they really are. For me, it was my dog and a cherry tree. Yeah, a cherry tree. And my doggo.Several years ago, my husband Olivier and I bought a house out in the countryside. Like many people in the same situation, we wandered through the empty rooms seeing nothing as it actually was. We only saw everything as it could be. None of the rooms appeared empty. We were operating under a hallucination, each corner filled with our furniture. Our wall art, bric-a-brac, and books. From room to room, projecting ourselves into the blank spaces. Each of us meandering through our own personalized holodeck.Outside, we inhaled the scent wafting from the lavender bushes and craned our necks to gaze up at the tops of the tall pines in the front yard. We...
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Leaving for Paris

Leaving for Paris

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
Four years ago, I was in the midst of disassembling my life in Colorado. This is the only way to build a new one. There in my apartment, which was rapidly becoming a large empty space, I stared at the packed boxes. There were more and more of them every day.There were times when the packing and planning was exhausting. It was easier to chain smoke in the dark with several pints of Guinness and a blank page while listening to Rufus Wainwright. Of course, one song that I played over and over again was "Leaving for Paris."httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djpWPhv1tPU&feature=PlayList&p=6FD35315AB3D3572&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1It seemed so appropriate since that is exactly what I was doing. It had occurred to me that I might actually be out of my goddamn mind. Then again, this thought has crossed my mind several times throughout my life and has never really been a point of major concern. But, packing up my life to move to another country to marry a man who I...
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Leaving Paris

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
It's been over a year now that Olivier & I have been battling with our upstairs neighbors, Hedwig & the Banshee. We've talked, argued & pleaded with them.They whined, complained & threatened to escalate the situation. We filed complaints with the Paris police - their shitty habits are just too damn annoying & disruptive. Although, to be fair...the majority of people living in our building don't seem to be familiar with how to be a good neighbor.It's not just the neighbors in the building. As I sit here writing this, I'm listening to the screams & chatter coming from the elementary school & junior high just behind our building.Eh...our apartment is too small, anyway.We've repainted all of the rooms & repaired all of the floors.We got in touch with an agency here in Paris that will rent the apartment from us & will use it to house families in need.Ok, then...all we had to do was...
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The “Fuck It” Method for Fleeing the Country

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
Just in case any of you have ever thought that you might like to flee the country & live elsewhere, I've decided to share with you my own, patented 10-point system to make it happen.1. Stop dating. Dates are horrible rituals that feel more like an audition, anyway. Fuck that - start dating online. The best way is to find someone in another country so that you don't have to go out to dinner or movies or any of that shit with them.2. After about a year of emails, phone calls & trips overseas, begin the process of inundating yourself with a bunch of bullshit paperwork & red tape to bring your foreigner to the United States.3. Decide, "fuck that" when it becomes too much work. Discover that it's easier for an American to go to another country than it is for a foreigner to come to the states. Remind yourself that the more distance between you & Bush, the...
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