Maria Alexander News and Updates from TheHandlessPoet.com

My Frenchman and I were at an important soiree tonight with all the faculty of Middlebury at the house of the Dean of the university. As we socialized with other professors in "l'ecole francais," we spoke with one of my teachers and discovered that I'm NOT supposed to be under modified pledge, but rather the FULL pledge. I never actually signed anything, so I have no idea what everyone else signed this week. So, as it turns out, I shouldn't be writing this or anything else, for that matter, in English.

This week has extremely exhausting. This is the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life. I cry almost every night with exhaustion -- not sadness, just this overwhelming feeling that my brain is being scooped from my skull like a jack-o-lantern carver with a handful of pumpkin pulp. It is ridiculously fucking hard.

Can I say that again? THIS IS RIDICULOUSLY FUCKING HARD.

Thanks. :)

My Frenchman tells me every day how much he appreciates what I've done and am doing. I don't feel the least bit unappreciated, that's for sure.

(Also, I committed complete fatigue suicide by agreeing to 1) be in the theater production and 2) sing and dance the can-can in the cabaret. Someone please kill me now.)

The results, though, must be worth the effort. As of today, I'm already understanding a great deal more than ever before. I shocked My Frenchman today a few times when he would lean over to quietly translate something someone said in my ear, only for me to hand him the translation before he could speak. I've been thinking a lot about La Maupin and all the research I'll be able to complete in France if this works.

That film, The 13th Warrior, just glows for me in a whole new way. In one of the most creative and accurate depictions of language learning, the main character, an Arab nicknamed Eban, learns the language through listening to the Vikings tell stories around the campfire -- over and over and over. Eventually, Eban realizes he understands what they're saying and shocks them by speaking in their tongue. While the vocal production part is a bit wobbly, the fact that he eventually understood isn't far from what I'm experiencing. It's insane how this is true.

Oddly enough, as I go silent, my agent is sending out the proposal (which she called "divine" and "amazing") to publishers next week. I have lots of reasons to feel positive about what's coming up. For now, I'm trying to figure out if I can get an alert on my phone when my agent emails me rather than checking email every day (a definite breaking of the pledge). These are very exciting times. A few of the students in my class have learned through the grapevine that I'm a "real" author, and they're asking all kinds of super sweet questions (in halting French, but I understand them just fine, I think). They've heard that something is happening for me and they're fueling the general excitement. I just don't want to detract from their experience here by mucking with the immersion process.

So, please, say a prayer, light a candle, chant, waft some incense my way, think nice thoughts at the uncaring universe, or do whatever it is you do. I feel lucky in so many ways, with an enormous amount of love in my life. However, I need mental and physical fortitude to hang in there.

If anything happens, I'll post here -- in French. ;)

A bien tot!

All these sweet green trees that surround me are turning my eyes beet red. And my skin? My old friend "the curse of the Celts" is back! I'm as red as Christmas wrap. I look like I've been skiing all day in the blistering sun when in fact I've been huddling under a parasol for five days. No one seems to mind other than me, especially not My Frenchman, but I dread looking in the mirror. I miss my oh-so-milky white skin.

At least France kicked Portuguese ass today in le match de football! WOO!

The really good news, though, is that my agent loved the revised proposal for G3 I sent her. She had some reservations about the title, but decided that all it needs is a subtitle. I'm working on that tonight instead of the six and a half tons of "devoirs" I've been assigned tonight. Once I send that to her, the thing is ready to go to publishers next week! Of course, I have reservations about it going out during Mercury retrograde. It started officially on Tuesday, but it really started about three days prior and I fucking felt every minute of it. There've been many retrograde episodes:

1. Re-placing my network cable.
2. Re-turning to college.
3. Re-vising my proposal.
4. Re-viewing some basic French, as well as those incredibly funny French in Action videos.
5. Re-visiting the IT department over and over with My Frenchman as we try to fix our connectivity problems.
6. Re-jection of my ATM debit card by half the machines I've tried in Vermont.
7. Re-connecting with E and L (on the cusp of the Retrograde).
8. Re-locating in another state across the country.

I won't even begin to go into all of My Frenchman's Mercury retrograde woes. Wow. He's getting hit like Wiley Coyote with the Roadrunner's wrecking ball. Please note, however, that most of the activities mentioned above are related to Higher Education, Long-Distance Travel and Publishing. Mercury is retrograde in my 9th house, which rules those areas, as well as foreign countries. Tres magnifique, eh?

My teachers are still fantastic, but I don't know how anyone can handle the pressure here as a "debutante." It's insanely intense. I nearly broke down in tears today over something not that serious because I was ready to snap from the tremendous energy drain. The effort it takes to stay immersed in a foreign language is enormous, especially when you can barely say anything coherent without sounding like a 3 year old. My fellow students are helping me figure out ways to get settled. One suggested to me today that I do what she did and get a copy of Interview with the Vampire with the French dubbing. My Frenchman is going to a special bookstore tomorrow, where he's going to pick up some poetry for me (the usual suspects -- Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and another he likes from the same period who is supposedly "tres Gothique"). Maybe he can get me some Marquis de Sade in French -- I'll have to ask him. My Frenchman was dancing around the room today, singing about me signing The Pledge next week. Oh, God.

Oh God...

I arrived in Hartford, CT on Wednesday evening, and was scooped up by my friends E and L who took me to sushi promptly in North Hampton. They showed me their comic book store there, as well, and then we trekked off to Brattleboro, VT. I slept like the dead there under possibly the most beautiful quilt I've ever seen on a bed that knew how to take care of jetlagged humans.

The next day, I drove their Subaru through the thunderstorms as E guided me deep into Lovecraft country. "The Whisperer in Darkness" was set somewhere in the "V" formed by the two highways that "meet" at Townshend. In the story, a body of the Migo was supposedly seen floating in the waters somewhere in the West River. The pictures I took -- complete with shots of a sanitarium, now euphemistically called a "retreat" -- are very atmospheric, all misty and murky like a Lovecraftian tale. (Apologies in advance for some of the captions. I've made bad Lovecraft puns. The shame!)

Yesterday, E and L drove me to my next destination: Middlebury College. This is where I'll live for the next seven weeks as I take the immersive undergraduate course in French. Ostensibly, I'll have to completely stop communicating in English starting Monday, as we have to sign a pledge to that effect. However, given what's happening with my agent, I might have to cheat discreetly and write in the afternoons, spending the mornings and evenings in French study. I won't be able to speak to anyone, including the Frenchman, in English. He arrives tomorrow night, and not a moment too soon! He's been teaching me to dominate him in French. I now know how to say, "I want to give you a spanking," "Get on your knees," and "On all fours." I want to learn how to say more specific vulgarities, but that might have to wait. I suspect he'll take this as a chance to switch on me and "correct" me when I use bad grammar. Wheee!

I've since met several of the Frenchman's friends. Everyone here is so very sweet. I felt grouchy and a fish out of water yesterday, but today I'm settling in more. I would feel even better if I could have hid under the bed yesterday for a bit. The Frenchman says that he's more like a dog, and I'm like a cat. He's happy everywhere, while I'm only happy when I'm master of every corner and couch.

The Middlebury campus is incredibly lush and rambling like the rest of Vermont. I took some pictures today before my camera battery wore out. I couldn't get Lovecraft out of my head, as you can tell from the sometimes very silly photo captions.

I must now go socialize. Quell horror, indeed!



*Verte is French for "green" and is pronounced "vair."