Dear Diary: Parley
Between five and six o’clock, I dragged myself around the apartment in despair, hoping that my neighbor and former French prof would have forgotten our date. “Hoping” is too strong a word; I knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t forget. But how could I receive him? I looked a mess, and so did much of the living room. I hadn’t finished tomorrow’s Daily Office, but what IÂ had done had depressed me completely. Not that I wasn’t already depressed. Feeling tired and fragile, I could not imagine simulating the bare minimum of sociability. Also, I was very cold. The heat hadn’t worked since lunch time.
Despite this funk, I threw myself into the shower and, having hosed down, put on a lot more clothing than I’d taken off. So that was two problems taken care of. I was clean and I was comfortable. I sat down and knocked off two more hours. It would have been nice to finish the page, but the doorbell rang promptly at six. There was nothing for it but to plunge headlong into the murk of Bad French.Â
Regular readers will not have forgotten my friend Jean Ruaud, recently the guest-editor of The Daily Blague. As a native of Touraine, Jean speaks just about the best sort of French that there is — but not to me. With me, Jean is eager to speak English, and since his English is a lot better than my French (among many other reasons), I oblige. But I don’t learn any French. Happily, I did not become Jean’s friend because I hoped to practice French with him, so I am not disappointed. In Jean, that is. My French, however, is un bordel.
Plunge I did, though, and pretty soon I was thrashing about like an enthusiastic but not very bright retriever, describing the problems of modern Greece in a language somewhat closer to Greek than English, but not necessarily français. La Grèce — I had to ask my prof for the gender, but not before I’d referred to in the masculin for several paragraphs. I looked back nostalgically on la Guerre froide, which, it must be acknowledged, imposed a certain discipline and a measure of organisation upon world affairs. I confessed that, President Obama’s appeal, things have gotten worse in this country than they were pendant les années Bush. (Don’t miss tomorrow’s Matins!)
Then we talked about the eighteen-month cauchemar, involving a leaking oil tank, at the prof’s weekend house (the tank belonged to a voisine mécreante). I am always glad that I don’t own a car, but the prof’s tale of woe reminded me that I am also glad that I don’t own a house. Come to think of it, though, not owning a house did not make the loss of heat for six hours more bearable than it would have been if I’d been in contact with the repairman. I wouldn’t have had to listen to bland and meaningless assurances that “they’re working it.” Â
But the heat did come back on while the prof was here. He asked me to check it even as I was headed for the HVAC. Most of my problems had been taken care of by this time, and now this: j’étais content.
J’ai descendu avec le prof shortly before eight — in time to pick up a collis at the package room. When I got back upstairs, I felt quite well for the first time all day. I even ordered a historical novel that the prof spoke of reading, Bernard Cornwell’s Agincourt.