I don’t know if he gets collagen, botox or cortisone injections, but I’d rather Ricky Martin stopped them and look a bit more his age (whatever it is, I don’t care all that much) rather than look so much bloated. Or is it just me?

I still have a few minutes left to decide whether I go out tonight. But the odds aren’t good.

P.S. I hadn’t realized before that my link color was Whiskas pink. Figures.

Adaptation

I feel like skipping the short movie step, since it’s not really my thing anyway, and write a feature film right away. I just read an article about the Dangerous Liaisons adaptation that was made for French TV and was just aired this week (with Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett, the latter’s voice being dubbed because, hey, how could the average audience cope with Valmont having a slight British accent?) makes me want to write my own adaptation, but I guess it’s a bit too ambitious (and, besides, it’s just been done). But I could very well come back to the couple of ideas I have in store—among which are some other book adaptations.

So right now this is what I’m wondering: If I spend some time writing a script, and if it’s good (it would obviously have to be, because I’m gifted, as you all know), would it really be possible to sell it? I’m not even expecting anyone to let me direct the movie, but just to buy my script. (You’ll note I have given up on the thought of producing it and directing it myself. That’s because I find it a bit unrealistic for a feature film. Maybe if I had a bunch of would-be actors and techniciens for friends, but I don’t. Anyway.)

You know how I like to believe that coincidences don’t exist (and yes, I know that will kill me; but, on the other hand, it’ll be part of the themes making my Immortal Oeuvre what it’ll be, so please don’t throw those snide comments at me when it’s obvious you just don’t know anything about Art). As it happens, the reader I met a few months ago (I’m not sure I told you about that—maybe I was right not to, by the way, because I wouldn’t want you to think there’s any kind of remote possibility of meeting me at all) told me about a friend of his who had written a script, and was offered a big load of money by some producers. I’m not even asking for a load of money, but just an open door. Oh well, and a bit of money too. So… maybe it’d be possible? I never really thought about it that way.

Now I have to decide which story I could write first. I have lost enough time as it is, I’m not going to write three scripts simultaneously.

I may have found a new layout I’m happy with for this site. Well, I’m happy with it because it isn’t that new: just the same format, but less sad. Anyway, I’ll wait until tomorrow so I can look back at it—and also because I’m not into making HTML out of it right now.

I finally was able to buy something thanks to the few (four, actually) pieces of clothing I sold in-world. Well, ok, it’s ugly, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.

Am I going out tonight or not? I can’t decide whether I want to see aunt Cécile* or not. And since I’m afraid my fever of the last two days might be linked to the fact that my devitalized tooth got broken (I just realized that this afternoon—arg, I’ll have to go get some dentist’s hands and tools in my mouth again), I don’t know if it’d be such a good idea.

* Since the linked post is in French, let me sum it up: with the arrival in France of a couple of easy blog publication systems (even simpler than Blogger, and in French, hence more easily used) there’s a massive birth of uninteresting blogs (yeah, I know it’s subjective, I’m not launching a debate here, just explaining what I’m talking about) characterized by the fact that bloggers tell what they did today even though they did nothing at all, which is all summed up as the syndrome of dinner at aunt Cecile’s.

Without a reply from you by August’s end, we remind you that we’ll have to terminate your dial-up unlimited access as soon as next September, at the anniversary date of your subscription.

Wahhhh. I still haven’t found a reader kind enough to set up a WiFi hotspot in my neighborhood. Where are you, samaritan? (Who here said that a samaritan should rather make sure I’m out of net access so I have to get a life and stuff? Do you really want my blog to be closed?)

I would post, oh yeah would I post, if I didn’t have a light fever (well, I say it’s light, but I didn’t measure it, maybe I will tomorrow if I don’t survive the night). So let’s say August is my month off and we’ll be back to whatever normal schedule is, well, when it’s not August anymore. Or earlier. Or later. Or tomorrow. Whatever, that’s what a blog is. My head hurts and, since I moved some furniture around in my room, my 17“CRT is a foot away from my eyes. Not helping.

— Are you a fireman or something? Because, you know, the way you walk, well, you just get noticed.

— What? A fireman? The way I walk? Uh, you… you mean that in a good way, right?

— Well, yes, of course.

O–kay. Welcome to the twilight zone. You know, I’m really beginning to feel like I spend the summer in some kind of bizarro universe where I’m a hunk, I walk like a fireman or something or whatever that means, and I can get boys I like to like me (well, that one guy in the dialogue I didn’t really fancy, but still he was young and rather good-looking), and I’m afraid that by summer’s end it will all be over and I’ll be back to my nerdy, unattractive self again. Well, it’s either that, or I just wasted the first 27 years of my life believing I was a useless spaz, when in fact all I needed was the right clothes and the right haircut and a couple months rowing and… self confidence. Yeah, that. I guess that’s what I really missed.

So this is the latest twist in the garoo’s life: I look like a fireman. A Paris fireman, mind you—you have to know that Paris firemen are famous for being particularly handsome, it’s an acknowledged fact. Now, I’m aware that the thing was basically a pick-up line, so it should be taken with caution. But it was a sincere pick-up line. Uh, wait, that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it was said with a straight face, it wasn’t mockery, it wasn’t meant to be ridiculous, the guy just kind of meant it.

All in all, it’s positively amazing how your perception of yourself can be at the opposite of the way people see you. I’ll have to get used to the idea that I’m not that ten-year-old loser with improbable clothes and an improbable haircut that nobody saw (well, I thought I was invisible; further experience suggested that it may not have been exactly true, although I’ll never know for sure). And I’m not that 20-yo pimple-faced slightly overweight doofus either. I may actually be a young adult now, and if I weren’t home in gnawed pajamas I might have added attractive to that. What a change. In just a couple of months.

So it’s all really getting in place to accomplish the grand scheme of things, is it? Yeah, I know what I mean.

I guess I might be able to get used to night buses after all (Paris has a dozen lines of buses that go across the city every hour at night—twice an hour on weekends). It doesn’t last as long as I thought, the bus riders aren’t that creepy, and there’s some kind of satisfaction to getting on a bus in the center of Paris and being delivered 500 meters away from my home without any transfer or wait. Now, come to think of it, there was a time, many years ago, when I was indeed used to taking that bus, but I forgot in the meantime. That would be due to the fact that, when you’re spending forty-five minutes in a bus, you experience time much more strongly than when you’re walking home from the train for half an hour, so it doesn’t leave a good impression on your memory.

— ’Scusez-moi, vous connaissez la rue d’Argenteuil ?

— Euh, non, désolé.

— Non ? Vous connaissez pas Paris ?

D’où il m’insulte, lui ? C’est quoi, ce provincial qui croit qu’il y a dix rues dans Paris et qu’on les connaît par coeur ? J’ai pas fait taxi dans une vie antérieure, moi.

All guys are assholes. I should know, but I keep forgetting.

I have often considered my ability to forget and rediscover everything over time to be a good thing, but I wouldn’t say it applies to this.

On the other hand, if I didn’t have hope, however delusional it may be, what would I become?

(These days I try and write my posts in English first, for a change, and so that the English version is better—because otherwise it tends to look too much like a translation—but now I can’t find a French word conveying all the meaning of delusional. Well, not that you’d mind.)

Je deviens gâteux, avec la chaleur. J’ai oublié de récupérer les images sur mon appareil photo avant de publier ce post.

D’abord les Triangolini ont arrêté d’être équilatéraux. Maintenant, ils ne sont même plus cuits. Et ensuite ? Les sachets seront vides ?

Est-ce qu’il y a des gens qui détestent l’odeur de leur transpiration ? Parce que, moi, je pourrais me mettre en position foetale dans mon lit et sniffer mon pyjama pendant des heures. (Qui a dit Vivement le blog en odorama ?) Tiens, je vais faire ça, ça m’occupera, je suis trop fatigué pour sortir ce soir.

I’m not dead (or at least, I’m only temporarily so, until the end of the heat wave). I even have a long article in my notes, but I won’t publish it before I can connect to There and make the screen capture that has to go along. And, anyway, you won’t be interested in that post. But, at least, it’ll fill up the page.

It’s really terrible getting to that point. These days, I’ve got no idea, I don’t tihnk anything, I’m in complete limbo. Holidays, somehow. Except that my bank account isn’t on holidays. So it would be nice if, right now, I could have an idea that would earn me some money. You know, something, what’s it called, a… no, no, not that. Nothing, then. How do you do in this world to make some money? I know how you’re supposed to do in There, but not in here.

There’s something good about the heat wave’s return: it’ll discourage me from ordering any chocolate-covered food again next week, considering how everything I have is joyfully melting in my corridor cupboard (because if I stored chocolate in my bedroom, with the rest of the food, it would be dripping between the floorboards in ten minutes). I haven’t dared check my weight for the past couple of days, must have gained three or four pounds. Well, it doesn’t matter, now that I know I can lose them.

Apart from that, still nothing to tell here. And yet, There’s servers are down for two days (until Wednesday afternoon), and you’d think it would make me post something. Nah. Maybe it’ll get better within the week, when I get my subway pass. Or maybe not. Oh, well, it’s August, so there’s probably nobody around anyway.

(Yes, I know you are here. I was exaggerating. Voilà.)

Ca intéresse quelqu’un, des fraises Tagada régurgitées à la becquée ? Je viens de manger tout un paquet, j’ai peur que ça fasse un peu beaucoup.

Oh, oui, je sais bien, j’ai déjà fait largement pire.

It has to be when I don’t have a subway pass, and I’m more or less stuck in my room, that the sun finally comes back. And, additionally, both my supermarket and the web store seem to have removed Ben & Jerry’s ice creams from their catalogs.

Oh, and I still haven’t much to tell. Though, being locked home and getting bored with There’s (understandable) poor performance on dialup, I may write more this week-end. Or not.