socially inept

so, yesterday i brought my friend katie home with me from school (she is one of the english assistants and she is from maryland :]) because she wanted to borrow our duffel bag for her trip to greece this vacation. (she figured that since she had a dance class at about seven she might as well just walk home with me and get the bag as opposed to having me bring it to school...) we gave her the duffel bag and made her eat something since i knew she would be too tired to make herself anything after she got home from her dance class...

she wasn’t so sure how to get to her dance class from our house so mark and i decided to walk with her so she wouldn’t get lost. as we were leaving, the man who lives in the apartment below us decided that he needed to come out and yell at us for being too loud...

(now, okay...mark at i aren’t the quietest people in the world its true. however, we actually try very hard to be quiet for this man. for the first month or so that we lived here we didn’t even think about how loud we were being...however when the concierge told us that the man below us had complained that we were too loud we started going to great efforts to be as quiet as possible for him. we take our shoes of the moment we come in, we try not to talk much louder than a whisper, we keep our music quiet, and we do all that we can not to slam the cupboards and doors to much. that should be good enough right? maybe in the U.S. it would be....but this is france....and they can get some pretty ornery old people in this country.)

so katie and i got to the apartment at about 5:30 and we left the apartment at 6:30 to get katie to her dance class by 7. we hadn’t really been much louder than normal and really most of it was just because katie didn’t know where the squeaky boards are in our apartment...

we were talking as we were going down the stairs and out came the man as we got to his floor...i saw him and as i was about to say “bon soir” noticed that 1. he didn’t look very happy and 2. he had absolutely nothing covering his bottom half. no pants...no underwear...( yes ladies and gentlemen...this man was only wearing a shirt and it was not nearly as long as i would have preferred it.) noticing these two facts i stifled my disgust (and slight laughter) and continued walking down the stairs as he proceeded to get mark’s attention and chew mark out for us being too loud (which may i mention was rather loud itself....) mark informed him that we always tried to be quiet and that we didn’t have wings so we couldn’t very well fly about the apartment. (the floor squeaks if you look at it...) the man then decided to tell mark that we obviously didn’t put enough effort into it or else he would never hear us and would live happily without being disturbed. mark tried to reason with him saying that we have to walk around to make meals and that in all honesty we aren’t home a lot anyway so he should be content that he doesn’t have to listen to us all day. again the man said that we don’t try hard enough and mark asked the man if he wanted to see what it would be like if we didn’t try at all to be quiet...the man had nothing to say for a bit and then proceeded to yell some more and mark just told him to have a good night and we walked away....

this is slightly frustrating and rather entertaining to me....the man is ridiculous....he wants us to make no sound at all (and if we do he smacks the ceiling with his broom or squawks up at us) but he feels no shame in yelling at the top of his voice in the hallway or in hitting his ceiling to get us to shut-up or yelling up at us....the things we do (walking...on squeaky boards...occasionally slamming a cupboard accidentally) only bother him...however i’m certain that the people that live next to him can hear him yell if we can hear him 1 floor up....and when he hits the ceiling he smacks it with all his might....the guy that lives next door to us hasn’t ever complained about us being too loud....

i don’t know.....the point is i’m really not sure how to reason with the man...and mark just wants to hit the old man upside that head he’s so frustrated....

how do you please people who expect you to be able to fly....?



also...why does highschool have to be so ... awkward....and why was i silly enough to be in it again? if it was hard the first time...it’s hard now that i’m married....i never was very good at being cool....and i’m still not...and i’m just so much better at being a loner...i dunno...i have some really good friends but nothing like what i had back home....and i really just want someone that can be my best friend that i can talk to about anything and they would laugh when i was funny or stupid...and i just want to be myself....i mean i guess thats what mark is now...but....he’s not at school with me....sigh....i’m just socially inept....and i can never think of anything interesting to talk about....i want to be done with school here....maybe i will feel better after the vacation....3 weeks should do me good.....

basically...i miss all you friends and family back home and the freedom i feel when i am around you....i love you all.......

hope all is well

praying for you always. :]