Post Chapman: stinky cheese and poetry

Monday 15 February 2010

stinky cheese and poetry

hi friends! i hope you are all well in your respective corners of the world. it's been an adjustment getting used to the quiet life aboard the marianna sailboat, just me and my dad, but i'm finally coming around. at first it was just weird to have free time, i was sad to have left laura and friends in the mountains, and plus i was sick and a little handicapped, so that didn't help the situation. but i'm mostly healed of my ailments, and i've found that i quite like the free time to develop new hobbies.
new hobby #1: leisurely reading! (i'm currently reading "the chalice and the blade" by riane eisler, an epic retelling of our prehistoric ancestors with a feminist twist, a must-read!!). (sidenote: my dad is super scared that i'm becoming a crazy feminist because i keep muttering "men" and "patriarchy" whenever we discuss current affairs, hahahaha)
new hobby #2: harmonica! i'm in the process of mastering auld lang syne (and my oh my, do i LOVe that song). some other favorites include oh susanna, careless love (the song that tim eriksen sings on his "sounds below" album), and home on the range.
new hobby #3: battling the french bureaucratic system! my parents have decided that this is the perfect time to integrate myself into the french system (health care, random money, etc etc - not to mention my mom is pretty sure that america is in the process of becoming a military-state or something of the sort and so she wants us to have other options when the shit hits the fan. oh lordy) which entails scrambling around to various offices only to find that we need YET another all-important document in order to take the next step. i feel like we've been running around in circles in an alphabet soup of acronyms and annoying "fonctionnaires".... very fun
new hobby #4: (this one if sort of forced upon me) listening to all of my dad's life stories. i swear i have enough to write a book by now, and the ridiculousness just keeps on coming, to the point where i'm seldom surprised and mostly annoyed. (psh, patriarchy)
new hobby #5: to take care of the multitude of feelings inside my brain and the lack of people to listen to said feelings, i've decided to dive into the quirky world of poetry! i know nothing about the subject, but i'm having fun with this new creative license. maybe you'll get a sneak peak at one of the sillier ones...

aside from all that fun stuff, i've been working a few hours a day doing random things around the boat, like sanding, cleaning, running errands, and generally taking orders from my dad el capitan. at least i get paid in euros!
here are some random pictures of life as of late --

the marina where we're staying in toulon

we went to visit cannes, where my dad was born, and they were having some freakish cold spell. there was snow on the palm trees! and even on the beach!