speaking (blogging, rather) of food-related names that double as feminine first names, i went to see the movie paprika tonight. what a weird film. it's an animated japanese feature about scientific dream manipulation. think eternal sunshine of the spotless mind without any of the physical constraints that live action places on characters' movements, but also without lovable characters. one element of the film that worked especially well was its suspense. when i was supposed to be scared, i was. i can't say that i recommend the film. it was interesting, but i won't go out of my way to see it again.

oh, my darling clementine

one day about a week ago, i noticed that my nails were a funny yellow/orange color. not being easily alarmed about my own health, i ignored it and hoped it would go away. two or three days later, i started to worry. optimistically, i tried to attribute my yellowness to my carrot intake because i once knew a girl who ate so many carrots her hands turned orange. but i knew that i hadn’t eaten any yellow or orange vegetables in the past couple weeks, and then, not enough to cause discoloration; besides, my palms were perfectly normal. then, i thought, what if i have jaundice? panicked, i ran to the bathroom to check the whites of my eyes. to my profound relief, they were still white. since the only place where i noticed the strange discoloration was on my nails, (and only between the tip and the cuticle) i knew that the villainous stain culprit must be something i spent a lot of time touching. but what?

i thought long and hard: i knew it couldn't be the yellow chalk from school or my yellow/orange pen because i don't use them very often. none of my clothes are obnoxiously bright yellow and i don't do manual labor with anything yellow. all at once, i realized: it must be the four or more clementines i'd been eating per day. my clementines of choice are not those itty bitty american ones, but the big, juicy, technicolor-orange, spanish variety. by peeling them manually, i must have been staining my nails orange/yellow. cue the huge sigh of relief. thank goodness nothing was actually wrong with me.

i'm not going to stop eating clementines because of this little scare. my friend p thinks that i should at least slow down, but in my opinion, living with stained nails is a small price to pay for the incredible amount of vitamin c and flavor, not to mention joy, that each clementine brings me. plus, i might be a little addicted.

success!

i had such a good time with the kids yesterday. we watched "another brick in the wall" by pink floyd and they had to figure out the lyrics, historical context, etc, yadda yadda, educational *yawn*. but they loved it! and i was riding high all day until one kid pointed out the parental warning on the case and that it might be illegal for me to show it in school. ah well, it's not like anyone is going to sue and i'm not a real teacher, so i can't get in too much trouble. i've never had a class beg me to let them sing before. i can't wait to do "magnificent seven" by the clash with a group. best call and response song ever.

ewww! i almost became meredith

yuck. a friend of mine pointed out that my situation is strikingly similar to "grey's anatomy", but i have no desire to be meredith.

he really didn't get it

i talked to the loup again yesterday. as part of thursday's plan to avoid openly rejecting him by seeing him with large groups of people, i had invited him to hang out with some of my friends last night. i almost cancelled after friday's debacle, but i wanted to give him one more chance to catch my drift before i severed all personal ties with someone that i have to see quite often. although i knew i was taking a huge chance, i had enough faith in the loup to let him pick me up last night, thinking the car ride would be the best time to talk seriously about "us".

that didn't end up being the case, because we got lost on the way to the restaurant. however, on the walk from the car to the restaurant, i brought up the delicate subject again. first, i asked him if he understood yet what i tried to say friday night. of course, he said "no," so i repeated what i said on friday. he gave me the same blank look i'd already seen three times, so i changed ploys. this time i connected the fact that he was married to the possibility of something happening between the two of us and my consequent discomfort. at last, i saw a light bulb turn on. you've seen it happen: the person inhales sharply and suddenly straightens up while widening his eyes; then he lets out a several-second-long "ohhhhhhh" that rises, then falls. i think i'm going to call it the "crescendo of realization" from now on.

once he'd crescendo-ed, he chose his words very carefully. he told me that he liked spending time with me and didn't consider himself married anymore, but that he didn't want to make me uncomfortable. i re-iterated my point that we couldn't spend time alone and he looked at me very sincerely replied said that we would do whatever i wanted.

in the first decision i've made with him that i'm sure is intelligent, i cancelled my plans with him for today. i feel like i accomplished three things last night: 1) i communicated my problem to the loup, 2) i introduced him to the most social person i know--he doesn't see many people now that his wife is gone--and 3) i made sure that i'm in control of the situation. scary.

rape counselors would disagree

having reflected on last night's events, i've started wondering if all this male attention is somehow my fault. in the past i've definitely wanted some attention from men--that's normal. however, recent events have definitely not been normal.

they remind me of an outing i took this summer to a dessert restaurant with some of my friends. i joked around with the waiter in hopes that he wouldn't spit in my pie, because you see, i'm a very difficult customer. i have to ask about the ingredients in whatever i eat and request all kinds of bizarre substitutions. even though i was at an ice cream parlor with a vegan (poor thing) i managed to take the longest to order. i even sent one pie slice back to the kitchen, so you see why i was worried about the server's reaction. once the waiter left the table to put in my second order, all three of my friends turned to me in unison with the same knowing, almost accusatory stare. as you can imagine, i was a bit scared. after a few uncomfortable seconds, one of them said, "you were totally flirting with our waiter." i was dumbfounded. no, i wasn't flirting; i was practicing damage control.

of course, i'm not being extra nice to any of the men that i've mentioned in this blog (besides the waiter) out of fear that they'll spit on me or anything i plan to eat. however, it's possible that i'm unconsciously giving them signs that i'm interested in them. that's especially the case with english husband. i sought out our first conversation because i wanted to meet the other half of one of the most wonderful women i've ever met. maybe i led him on? i don't know. the only thing i know is that i need to spend less time with men and more with my female friends. that plan seems like common sense, but it's difficult to do. i'm new to my job in a new city and i don't know very many people. the few people i do know, i know through male acquaintances, so even if i do hang out with the girls i know, the guys will probably be with us.

in addition to my unconscious flirting, another fault that will probably get me in trouble is my love of fixing things. i can't imagine leaving the situation with the loup the way it is, especially since he's already done so many things for me. i want everyone to come out of this experience relatively happy, though that might not be possible.

"People kill people over things like this"

so says my roommate, quite justly. bad things happened tonight, some of which you could probably see coming a week ago.

yesterday after school, the loup asked me if i wanted to see an art exposition on sunday. i thought about turning him down right away, but i stopped myself because i thought i might be able escape dumping him (even though i'm not dating him) by inviting other people on our date. in order to give myself some time to think about these two options, i said "maybe" and that i'd give him an answer today before the staff party tonight.

today, i decided that the second, more cowardly option was the better one, so i agreed to go the the exposition and started inviting other teachers left and right. the first person i asked said "sure" in a very cavalier and insincere manner. i know that i won't see him on sunday (for two reasons, but i'm jumping ahead of myself). the second gave me a similarly ambiguous and uninspired response. the first positive reply came from an english teacher with whom i work quite closely and who gave me a ride home before the party. she said she'd come on the condition that her husband come with us. no problem for me. she's one of the most dynamic and energetic people i've ever met, so i figured that he must be at least half as cool as her, right? oy.

at the staff party tonight, english teacher introduced me to her husband, who seemed really cool. i realize that "cool" is a very poor adjective in this day in age. however, it is the proper term to describe him: he has longish hair, cut so that however much he may muss it, it always falls back in place; tonight he was wearing a pin-striped blazer over a dark, diagonally criss-cross-striped sweater and a pair of jeans; his shoes were stylish, but unremarkable. despite the mixture of patterns, his outfit was extremely tasteful. he looked cool.

when english husband opened his mouth, he did not disappoint me. he was every bit as engaging in conversation as his wife. the problem was that he talked to me for most of the night. i liked him, but after talking to him for almost an hour i realized that it wasn't very nice of him to ignore his wife in order to talk to me. i ran away for a bit to join the spontaneous jazzercise class that the gym teacher started in part of the room, thinking that he'd rejoin his wife and that would be that. but, after the dance he started talking to me again. in fact, the loup became my refuge from english husband. imagine that.

at the end of the night, english teacher and english husband returned to the question of the exposition. they wouldn't be able to make it. i wasn't terribly disappointed because the thought of seeing both english husband and the loup together again made me quite uncomfortable. however, it did make it difficult to avoid being frank with the loup about our relationship. thus, when the loup insisted on driving me home, i acquiesced without protest because i knew what i had to do.

most of the ride home was amusing because the loup is a very funny guy. the end, on the other hand, was less than fun. just before i was about to get out of the car i turned to him and said, "i have to tell you something. we can't see each other too often by ourselves because it makes me uncomfortable to do so with a married man." the beginning of my declaration was slow because i didn't want to start this conversation, but the second sentence was all one word, spoken in one breath. he simply looked at me and said, "i don't understand."

i thought my words were clear, but that i had spoken them too quickly, so i repeated myself more slowly. so did the loup. that moment was when i realized that this conversation was going to be even more difficult to end than it was to begin. i repeated myself a third time and this time he said, "but i'm not married," to which i responded, "but you're not divorced." his reply (no joke): “not officially, no." i simply repeated myself a fourth time. i don't think that this is a concept that is horribly difficult to understand, but maybe i didn't express myself forcefully enough.

of course, as soon as we said our goodbyes, i rushed into the house and fell apart in front of my roommate, who told me to stay away from the loup at all costs. she added that the wife might secretly be suffering and that i could be putting myself in a lot of danger of the mental, emotional and, possibly, physical varieties. she's a smart girl whom i don't often give enough credit and who, unfortunately, has been in my situation before.

after talking to my roommate i realized two things: first, i have to spend a week with the loup because we're two of the four adults on a school field trip; it's going to be impossible to avoid him for the next several months; second, it's possible that he didn't understand what i was trying to say because he had never thought of my as anything more than a friend. i don't know how likely that possibility is, but i'm going to call him tomorrow to try to make my feelings clearer for him and, very likely, to cancel sunday's outing.