Perspiration and Interpretation: Blogger Wins by a Landslide

I am a simple man with simple ways. And this is how I like my technology . . . SIMPLE. After some tinkering around over at WordPress, I have realized many of the keen features that would allow for someone more interested in the intricacies to produce something of real value. Unfortunately I am not that guy. Like I said . . . SIMPLE. Blogger does an equally adequate job with perhaps a bit less bravado, but that is what I really like about it. It is easy to utilize for someone as antiquated as I, and I find I need nothing more advanced than a simple (there’s that word again) way to get my message out there. I am not interested in brilliant graphic displays or Hollywood theatrics. Words on a page are about the best you can hope for from me. It has crossed my mind to occasionally post a photo of my latest art work, but my generally attitude of sloth and disdain tend to keep me from any grand technological advancements. Don’t get me wrong, I am a child of the technological age and I could as likely rewire your television as fix your lawnmower, but the less I am tied to a computer the better I feel. They are a necessary evil and I stay up with it as much as modern life requires, but under no circumstance do I feature myself more than a casual “user”. That being said, let’s get back to the basics and let me share with you my discoveries for the day.

According to the Mercury, it has turned off quite warm the last day or two. Friday of this past week, in fact, I would even argue was even a bit “hottish”. Now, I am from the middle of middle America, so my concept of hot is a bit skewed. This is not to say that there are hotter places in the universe . . . the SUN for example. Most rednecks will tell you with a hillbilly twang that “tain’t the heat that gets yer, it’s the humidity!”. This week it has averaged around 99 degrees in the heartland which, by Phoenix standards, is not all that compelling. What the raw temp doesn’t tell you is how sweaty that can make you. Today’s forecast back in Kansas was looking for a lovely 106 and we haven’t even made it into the REALLY hot months yet. We are fairly spoiled here in France since our average this time of year and this week in particular is somewhere in the mid-seventies. This single day last week was a notable exception and we did experience temperatures approaching the mid-nineties. The truth is, I could banter around numbers all day long, but there is one equalizing factor that must be accounted for. AIR CONDITIONING.

We don’t have it. In fact, I don’t know of anyone in France who does. My car has it, but this is a luxury upgrade that you don’t necessarily expect to find even in a brand new vehicle. It is because Mother Nature has seen fit to bestow upon this part of the world her very own element of climate control, there is really no need for it. That is to say, USUALLY there is no need. When the temperature begins to rise, even my ordinarily cave-like stone cottage becomes a bit more like a wood fired pizza oven. Sweating is just what you do. Again, all the more reason for adequate deodorant protection, but I won’t jump on that soapbox today (stay tuned though . . . it is never too far in the back of my mind). During the day, confining myself to the lower floor keeps things tolerable, however, eventually I must sleep and that’s when things get sticky . . . and sweaty . . . and sweaty . . . and sticky. There are times that I don’t mind such sweltering and sultry conditions in my bedroom, but I am usually not trying to sleep. Movies have a way of romanticizing extreme heat. Take one of my favorites for an example: A Time to Kill. There have never been a set of people that looked more sexually ripe than when Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock took to the screen. Scene after scene portrayed them with a glistening sheen that must have taken several coats of baby oil to achieve. Hell, it even made Samuel Jackson look desirable . . . well, sort of. He needed a shave and a hair cut, but you get the point. Sweaty people LOOK sexy, though for me the feeling is a bit less romantic. I have no hair atop my head to stem the rolling tide of sweat from pouring into my eyes. What doesn’t see fit to blind me with a salty sting seems to retreat off the back of my naked scalp in a cascade of Niagara proportions. When my shirt has reached its saturation point, there is nothing left for the remaining perspiration to do but seek to winter even further South. The natural consequence of this is a tremendously sweaty crack that can be seen from space.

None of this, of course, makes you very keen to socialize, so imagine my disappointment when my doorbell rang and I was forced to face the outside world in a tepid pool of my own sweat. It was my neighbor and his 20 something daughter. I took a towel and squeegee to myself before opening the door and greeted them as freshly as I could manage on such a sweltering day. The reason for their visit was to inquire whether they could use my WiFi as their internet service was down and they needed more connectivity than their smartphones would provide them. None of that is really of any import other than as a sweet segue to my other topic for the day.

My sister-in-law once commented that the “trick” to French vocabulary is to simply try to remember the “fancy” way to express yourself in English and you will be pretty close to the French equivalent. This linguistic tool has, on more than one occasion, saved my skin and is really fairly obvious in its inception. American English has seemingly lost most of its formality after our Declaration of Independence, still there are a few of us out there that still remember our Grammar School lessons which were full of these more button-down words and phrases. Make no mistake, the English language is fairly complicated and it is our need to make things less confusing that has lead us to abandon many of these words and phrases. For simplicity’s sake we stick with the familiar so as to not add confusion since English is no longer a terribly implicit language even though duplicative language still makes for lively conversation on occasion. French can be quite formal and incomplete because they utilize a great deal more context in their communication than we do in English. Meaning is implied by circumstance so fewer words are needed to express one’s self . At least, that is the way it seems to the uninitiated. And yes, unfortunately I am still fairly uninitiated.

So, when my neighbor went to introduce his daughter (whom I had not met), he utilized a fairly formal mode of English. Perhaps it was my deliriously sweaty condition that had me at a loss for words, but the conversation nearly went something like this:

Neighbor: I would like to present to you my daughter __________.

Me: Well, I would have preferred for her to come of her own free will, but I appreciate the very kind gift.

Neighbor: ???

Me: I promise to take good care of her, she seems a lovely young lady. How much do you feed her? Does she come with any special instructions?

Neighbor: ????

Me: Do you happen to have a gift receipt in the event she breaks or I want to exchange her?

Neighbor: ?????

Me: I feel like I should give you a gift in return, but I was sort of unprepared for all of this. Have a great day, and thanks again!

Fortunately, the fact that I was beginning to once more drown in the profuse sweat that immediately returned after my toweling off meant that I was unable to really say much at all. This moment of pause gave me time to collect myself and realize this was an introduction, NOT a transfer of ownership. You see, when someone “presents” something to me I presume it to be a gift or award . . . something for me to keep and call my own. Seldom am I forced to infer the meaning of this word from the circumstances because we simply say we would like to “introduce” somebody. To “present” oneself or another is naturally quite correct and our shared formality comes from the universal use of Latin throughout both languages. What this all really amounts to is a massive rationalization for my difficulty in learning the French language. It has taken me a lifetime to become even moderately functional with short form English, so how in the hell at my age am I supposed to go back and sort the whole thing out again. Verb conjugation and the like are not as complicated in English, still there are a million or so other pitfalls to trip you up. As such, I remain in awe of those who command both languages with such ease and grace. Mixing the two of them gives me a tremendous headache and has me sputtering in a broken dialect that nobody seems to understand and has most questioning if I need a bib to catch my drool.

As a final thought, even though it seems that I have argued that French is more implicit and confusing than English, written communication seems to level that equation. I would like to note at the start that I will no longer be available for two way conversation using any form of communication other than a direct phone call. We might not imply literal meaning as much in our verbal communication as the French, but we damn sure infer a tone whenever we put pen to paper . . . er mouse to screen? It is at this point that even the most literal comment can be taken to mean something entirely different and have me wondering why my wife is so pissed off with me. A recent text conversation with my wife serves as a great example. We were to meet to do a little shopping in the city, but she had to drop by the post office before our rendezvous. I received a text right before our appointed meeting time indicating that she was still at the post office and that she had been waiting for a while in line. Trying to determine where and when we would then eventually meet, I simply asked “how much longer?”. To me, this seemed a harmless and natural inquiry to her messages of “at post office” and “been here 25 min”. She gathered that I was annoyed and was being critical with her for getting held up. Neither of these things were the truth, I was simply trying to formulate a new meeting schedule so that I knew when to appear at the designated meeting spot. I once had an employer who constantly sent terribly degrading and critical emails to the entire staff and then wondered why moral was low. He would often follow these attacks with an even more demeaning email saying that we were all stupid and that email doesn’t have emotion. This is, of course, a bunch of bullshit. Written correspondence can be absolutely full of emotion and underlying meaning. Even something as simple as “how much longer” can obviously be misconstrued. I find the careful editing of my correspondence and subsequent investigatory work on the response of others to be exhausting. So from now on, if you need to communicate with me, do so in person or by telephone. That way, when I tell you to “take a hike” you will know whether I mean that we should go for a walk together or I am telling you to piss off. Until tomorrow. R.