Beauté mâle

I loved you for your beauty; that doesn't make a fool of me
You were in it for your beauty too
I loved you for your body; there's a voice that sounds like God to me
Declaring that your body's really you

Obviously I didn't write that. If I was able to write something like that, I wouldn't be an industrial journalist. I'd be a Canadian treasure, or else a Hallmark writer specializing in anonymous cards to ex-boyfriends you don't actually want to see again but who you've had a nice dream about.

Actually the nice dream about Bluebird was awhile ago. Last night's nice dream was one of the stranger ones I've ever had. It was naked, yes, but very Leni Riefenstahl naked, not really Mistress La Spliffe naked, and not actually a sexual dream, certainly not in the sense of the old in out in out. More healthy than hot. It featured a man who I can only describe as a cross between Bo Duke and Shah Rukh Khan, except a giant. And me being aware over the course of the dream that I was looking at the most beautiful man I could possibly be looking at, and that by default made him the most beautiful thing ever. I mean, like, Reinaldo de Souza beautiful. Except a giant. And naked. And blond. Which usually I'm not into, actually, but it worked in the dream. I was worshipping him, basically, he was beautiful enough that my ego was subsumed, and I woke up quite sacral.

Anyways, it made me get to thinking about male beauty and female desire, probably sparked off by re-reading Jane Eyre yet again and realizing how pantingly in lust Jane was with Rochester. I mean, every description just oozes her appreciation of his athletic form and masculine essences and whatnot, and I had never really appreciated just how close the bit where she tells him she's leaving gets to literary rape fantasy. I always assumed he was threatening to kick the shit out of her, or kill her, or something. That whole section makes a lot more sense now, actually. But anyways. I was going to go on about something else altogether, but now I have to get back to work.

Initials, initials, initials wtf????

You know something about girls from the north of France? They're fucking insane. I still have good friends from those years in Paris I was writing about last week. Only one of them, recently, has been a real live northern French girl. Maybe I was phenomenally unlucky in who I got to know, but they're so high maintenance – they give new fucking meaning to the term. Even the hippies, even the career women, even the academics. Jealous, obsessive, bitter, needy – and that's to other women.

When it comes to men, it's that times infinity, and I've seen them note what sort of credit cards their prospective mates use in the same the way mentally healthy women note how pert his ass is or how kind he is. There's a reason even fucking ugly men from the north of France manage to pull beautiful tourists so consistently; they're trained to be so browbeaten and miserable by their women that when a halfway normal chick comes into their lives it's like they're born again. And being the cause of someone's renaissance is irresistible, of course. I have no doubt that's why they fuck around like sparrows - must be a perpetual, desperate instinct that there's a relationship less soul-crushing out there. It's an unhealthy societal gender dynamic altogether, like so many societal gender dynamics are, but northern France is the only society wherein I blame the women.

Anyways, the worst thing about chicks from northern France is that when you have a quarrel, they accept your apology when you haven't made one. I hate that. There's nothing better calculated to get my goat that doesn't involve stabbing me or otherwise threatening my life. That's on my mind today because the last northern France girlfriend just bit the dust, because she just accepted an apology I didn't make.

This one is still a bit raw, and stupid into the bargain, so instead I'll tell you the story of the end of the affair with the second last one, which is old enough now to feel more anecdotal than personal. This was years ago, when I was still with Bluebird. One night in Paris she and I went to a club alone, because Bluebird wasn't into dancing but I was, in those days. She'd told me it was jungle-y, but it wasn't, it was a fucking top 40 meatmarket. I hadn't been totally unsuspecting it because she was a bit of a cougar, so fine. She found a pair of men who claimed to be a professional tennis player and his trainer or coach or whatever you call them, and tossed me the player while she ground up against the trainer. So I danced with him, and when he started rubbing his cock against me I stopped, and when he followed me off the floor, kept rubbing his cock against me and stuck his tongue into my mouth, I told him to leave me alone, I was going home alone that night.

Fine, right? Or at least I thought so. That's the nature of a top 40 meatmarket. That's why I don't go to top 40 meatmarkets except when my cougar friends need moral support. The men there are gross and horny, and you have to be brusque to make them leave you alone from time to time. But Tennis flipped out and rushed over to his trainer or coach or whatever bullshit they'd invented and wanted to leave. Carried on a bit, apparently. I didn't notice, because the club started up a Jackson 5 half-hour and I was dancing my arse off with the first real live black man from Virginia I'd ever met; a big thrill for a young girl from northern Canada. My cougar friend came over, shook me, and asked what I'd said to make Tennis freak out. I told her, and she got pissed and told me to apologize to him; I thought she'd lost her mind, so I shrugged and kept dancing with the real live black man from Virginia. A few minutes later she plucked me away whilst he was telling me exciting tales of his business dealings in Japan in that beautiful accent, maybe the most beautiful accent in English. 'Come on,' she said, 'I got us a drive home.' It was Tennis and his trainer. Uncomfortable. But I was British about it and made them drop me off close to my flat.

So the next day she called and started yelling about my bad manners in being so rude to poor Tennis, and I hung up on her. Mature? No. But it seemed like the best thing to do at the time as anything I would have had to say would have been nasty. The incident was the last straw, as far as I was concerned, after a bunch of other episodes like calling me at four in the morning from her ex-boyfriend's driveway and telling me to get over there so I could confront him with her about what an asshole he was (a call I could have accepted much more easily if she hadn't been sober as a fucking judge at the time) and repeatedly trying to get me to fuck other people behind Bluebird's back whilst talking shit about him - okay, since then I've talked my share of shit about Bluebird, but I still think she was unfair to him, and I didn't get why she was so anxious to start me cheating on him, it seemed creepy - so I didn't call back. And I didn't take her calls, either. Mature? No. But again, it seemed like a better option than explaining to her what a big loser I thought she was.

Anyways, after a few days I'd cooled down, and she invited me over for dinner, and I went, and she said lots of lovely things about what great friends we were, and we were having a jolly time, and then she said she'd accepted my apology for all that had happened because she understood I was from a different social class and hadn't had the same education she'd had. That sewed it up, of course. I left and never talked to her again. Although the bizarre thing is that she told mutual friends I had. And not in an angry way, either. She'd tell them about whole friendly conversations we'd been having about absolutely random subjects. It was strange.

So that's the story of the second-last one. I've often felt sort of bad I just got real quiet on her. And she's not the only one I got real quiet on. There's a small trail of women from the north of France who I got real quiet on. If northern French women are dastardly bitches courtesy of the horrible things they say, caker women like me are dastardly bitches courtesy of our way of going real quiet.

It's a difficult bad feeling, because I'm not exactly sorry. I didn't want to spend any more time with them, I didn't want to talk to them anymore, I don't miss them, and I don't know if it's my pride or my fondness for order in the time/space continuum of the universe or both that would make it difficult for me to apologize to them for going all quiet when they've already accepted my apologies that I hadn't made yet, especially when all I'm sorry for is going real quiet, and not when I'm sorry that I don't talk to them anymore; and I wouldn't really like to talk to them anymore, except for a brief conversation about how I'm sorry for having gone real quiet. You see? The implication of all this being, with this final northern French girlfriend, I will not go real quiet. I'll tell her what the problem is. As bleedingly obvious as it seems. And then I'll go real quiet.

For all the American people who want change

So this morning when I checked the news after a lovely night's sleep made visionarily tumultuous by some excellent new grass, I couldn't believe how relieved I felt. As the news page loaded I prepared for the worst, and told myself to enjoy these last few moments of not having to think Americans actively wanted the End Times, and even started wondering if I could persuade the F-word on New Zealand instead of Australia for our future home, because it's that much more isolated from a world I'd want to avoid if Americans did actively want the End Times. And then seeing the 'Historic Victory' headline was like taking a shit. A lovely big shit on a Sunday morning.

But in the spirit of me shitting on things: hey, people who voted Democrat, you won! And you won big. Congratulations! The senate probably won't be filibuster proof but otherwise, by winning 52% of the popular vote, you've precluded the 47% of voters who voted Republican from having any control of your legislative process. After what happened in 2004 and 2000 - you know, when the Democrats lost after getting 48.3% and 48.4% respectively, even winning the popular vote in 2004 - it must feel really good. But you also know that's bullshit, right? You know first hand that that's bullshit. I don't know what would have persuaded someone to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, but millions did, and democracy should be about popular representation, not the nearly complete disenfranchisement of a HUGE (though in this case apparently apocalyptic) minority.

I'm not going to praise the Canadian system, though it's much more representative; it would be hard to be any less representative, so there's no great virtue in that. Any first-past-the-post system is going to end up crap. And as happened a few weeks ago, the Green Party can get 7% of the Canadian vote and lack any seats in Parliament, whereas a regional party like the Bloc Quebecois can get around 10% of the Canadian vote and 49 out of 308 seats. And we still have a fucking Queen, like a bunch of medieval thistle munchers. So no, I'm not going to praise it. But I am going to praise parliamentary systems in general, as something American decision makers should be forced to think about by you, the American People Who Want Change, and mention one that is set up quite well - Australia's. Seriously. Read about it and think about it. Manage that sort of thing without letting the motherfucking Queen step in and slap you down when you're getting too pinkoist, and you would be a proper beacon of democracy throughout the world.

And if you're feeling really ambitious, check out Switzerland. You won't believe your fucking eyes. Nobody ever knows, and then nobody can ever believe that Switzerland does this shit. And nobody can ever believe it works, but it does. You know when you're watching war documentaries, and all the battle lines just sort of stop at the Swiss border while ploughing through other neutral countries? That's why. You know why Swiss people are all fucking rich - even the poor ones? That's why. You know why that country can function as a multi-lingual (4, officially) republican entity, and has done so over centuries despite being located in the thick of the highest, shittiest mountain ranges in Europe with no marketable natural resources besides skihills? That's why. A fundamentally representative political system. And no fucking Queen. Though I bet she keeps a lot of her money there.

Don't get defensive, like this is some sort of commentary about Canada or Australia or Switzerland being better than the US. It's a commentary about their political systems being better than the US's. I've got no personal affinity for the Swiss - full disclosure - Bluebird was Swiss and you know how that went - and some of his more objectionable attitudes to the blacks and the gays were reflected by the other Swiss I met, leaving me with a bad impression overall. And Australians sometimes seem like a bunch of oiks who, like Canadians, still bizarrely tolerate the Queen (though the new leader of the opposition, silver spoon merchant Malcolm Turnbull, used to be the head of the Republican movement, and I believe the ruling Labor party still has republicanism listed as a basic platform, giving me a sliver of hope that by the time we move there that relic of an uglier time will be off the fucking money). And Canadians also shocked me last time I was home by the profligacies of their day-to-day lifestyle. I contemn pretty much everybody, in short. But everybody being contemptible in their own special way should not preclude an examination of that they do right politically, and then ripping off what they do right politically to use in your own country.

So. You want change you can believe in? How about change that's actually change?

Lying there with all the light in your hair

Artificial drama makes me impatient, but I try to keep that impatience tamped down because I'm often a little drama factory myself. At least, I am in my head - I try to not let it slip out my teeth or typing fingers. Also, I understand it's people's way to deal - in the same way that they'd rather look like a bastard than a patsy, even when the risk of being a patsy is small, they'll prefer to see themselves as some sort of wronged romantic heroine when the truth is that there was a big emotion that had nowhere to go.



Another thing that makes me impatient is a lack of imagination, and yet I have no imagination when it comes to other people's emotional existence. It can take me years to arrive at some sort of useful juncture when I'm trying to understand the people I love, or who I loved, and sometimes my subconscious needs to help, like it did last night in a 'Bluebeard' dream.

I was in the courtyard of La Pedrera, which had been moved to Paris, and he was there as well, bright-blue-eyed, happy, and rather scrawny as he had been when we first met, before I’d cooked and biked the heroin-chic modeling years out of him. He was acting in his sweet way, with the sweetness that made me want to stay with him long after it was evident I had to go.

‘It’s damp here,’ he observed.

‘Yes,’ I said, pointing to a half-basement apartment behind us. ‘We used to live there and I don’t think it was good for our lungs.’

And then his new girl was there. She looked slightly like me, but much better – that sort of stupendous, mid-size dark blonde you get in a stretch here from Denmark down to northern Italy, through Holland, Alsace, Luxembourg. I liked her instantly, and their rapport was adorable. They started frolicking around the courtyard, and as he scooped up a handful of rainwater to splash her she grabbed my arms and hid behind me. ‘Don’t let him get me!’ she cried, and they both fell about laughing.

Wondering if I’d be pressed into a ménage à trois I’d have to politely refuse, I consented to go to their apartment to pick up some stuff I’d left there. As soon as we entered they both went down for a nap. I gathered up some of the more important and portable things and made to leave.

On my way out, he woke and rolled over to face me, naked as a jaybird. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he said, and I told him I’d arrange to come back and pick up the other things later. I kissed him on the forehead and tucked him in next to her, where he fell back asleep almost immediately, a happy little smile on his face.

When I woke up I knew that boy can’t be my bogeyman anymore. I remember too much that I shouldn't forget. His sweetness was just as much a part of him as the batshit craziness. And although that brand of batshit craziness is unacceptable to me, I've been coming to realize for years it’s not really deviant in Central Europe, where their genocides are in living memory and those damnable Italian fuckwits are gearing up for another with their gypsy-hating and sheer fucking pig ignorance. All that fury, all that anger, those words and that way of acting - no wonder it confused him so much when I was revolted by it. It's normal here.

And after having gone through what he went through with me - being rejected because I couldn't accept that fury - how could I expect anything except that he'd get more conscious of it, and go into his next relationship with a greater desire to show more of his sweetness and less of his batshit craziness? Why would I choose to believe he could be some sort of lurking monster when - with his wealth, extreme good looks, generally sweet character and a level of fucking insanity which is merely typical by continental standards - some perfectly reasonable European woman would snap him up and perfectly reasonably love the shit out of him, and that woman - and the man himself - would probably benefit from what he learned through our relationship?

In short, how could I focus so hard on the 2% chance he's the revenge-obsessed monster he acted like when he realized I wasn't just play-acting breaking up with him, and the 98% chance he's happy with someone much better suited to him now? Sure, the 2% chance exists. But the other 98% chance is much, much bigger and rather more pleasant to dwell on . . . so much so, and so obviously, that I wonder if - no, I know I've been choosing to believe that getting over Mistress La Spliffe is impossible. Throwing a mean-spirited sop to my ego whilst throwing prime rib to my pride, my paranoid fear. Harming my mental health, my pleasant memories of the good times we'd shared, and some of the lessons I should've learnt through our relationship.

Because, of course, as my analyst was always at such pains to point out: everybody in the dream is you. As was that girl, his new girl, who was as pretty and happy as I felt myself to be when we first got together all those years ago; a girl who didn't utterly fuck things up, but who did what she felt was right at the time, and who had some joy with that man that made some unpleasantness worth it for a long time. And in the dream, he was me too; the 'big bogeyman' part of me, who is almost statistically certain to have hurt Mistress La Spliffe more than the man himself ever even wanted too. Happy now, playful, reasonable, and put to bed.