Don't even read this appaling entry

DENIS,

There has been an unfathomable outbreak of bugs in my room that is colossal in number. Just thinking about this situation makes my stomach turn and vomit begin to tickle my throat. Here are the facts:

1. Two weeks ago, I saw a few little black bugs flitting here and there about my room, though I barely took notice as we had just moved in and were dealing with much larger issues.

2. A week and half ago, I woke up and noticed that these little shithead critters were actually scattered throughout my floor. And, oh look! There was one on my bed!
And on my book shelf! I slowly inspected the room and was eventually led to my large windowsill. At this moment, my life changed forever. I see that there are about 100 bugs scattered throughout the large windowsill. Some are ugly baby bugs that are running around like chickens without heads, some are repulsive teenage bugs that are stupidly flirting with other disgusting promiscuous teenage bugs (and believe me when I say these girls are FAR FROM CHASTE), some are adult bugs that are just basking in the sunlight and some are bug corpses that have evidently met their death on one of my favorite books or with heads bowed silently against my new perfume. SICK.

3. Exterminator comes and says that there is no way any insect will survive after the number he did on our place. Phewfta. NOT.

4. Four days ago, after I washed everything I own, moved all of my things back into the room, and vomited one million times, I noticed that a few bugs were back.
Exterminator tells me not to be a baby and that those were just the last survivors and "everything is fine."

5. Yesterday, I find dozens more chilling on what once was my windowsill and is now just a vast terrain of smushed bugs and live ones rolling around. SICK SICK SICK.

6. My landlord came today after I called 10 times to inspect the situation. He brings his own extermination kit. Together, we find about 100 other buggies living in the creaks of my windows. He tells me "everything is fine" and I begin to cry hysterically. You know how a baby can go from being totally fine to, like, wailing crying in 10 seconds flat? That is exactly what I did.

7. Landlord becomes extremely uncomfortable and says "ahh, you are pretty...bye," and runs out of our apartment faster then a teenage bug procreates with another one in the vile, vomitous, revolting space formally known as my bedroom.

I am moving back to Minnesota.

Julia

Make new friends, but keep the old, some are silver and the others are amazing extermanators.

Well Denny, I am sorry again for not making my day visit to the Haven this weekend. If I had known then what I know now (ie that I wouldn't find a boyfriend and there would be a infestation of carpet beetles in my apartment), I would have been on the fast Metro-North to ghetto-ville.

Yes, there has been a bug infestation in our apartment. And the exterminator is here. And he is a talker. In fact, he is talking our faces off as I pretend to be involved in very important iBookG4 matters..

"I am more than an exterminator, I am a friend. I am your friend, you are my friend, we are friends."

"I wake up every morning and I can't wait to go to work. I love it, I just love it."

"I get to see new assholes every day, not the same."

"There are hundreds of different kinds of ants. Fire ants, harvest ants, red ants, stinging ants, hot ants, Florida ants, carpet ants, army ants. I can name a lot more."

"I am not looking to make a million dollars a month or a million dollars a year. I am not lookin for nothing in life."

He just left. Then came back in to tell us that he is always the most popular guy at a BBQ (I love BBQs and I love popular friends, I just knew this would work out!) because people always want to hear his stories. He left us with this:

"People always give me bugs to look at. Once, this woman brings me a bug and asks me what it is and I look at it and I tell her 'Woman, this is a booger. A booger.' I got lots of stories like that."

God Bless,
Megan Marion

I feel majorly excluded

Hey Dennnnn,

The icky nightmare has finally ended and we’ve moved into our new apartment, aka, The Lexington Council. Doesn’t that sound totally fancy-pancy?? Honestly, we originally wanted to move into this purple shiny building that is called The Princess Manor, but I’m really starting to like the LC. The place is cute as pie. My room has these crazy, HUGE church-like windows and is almost blindingly bright and Megs has a smaller little room that is reminiscent of a tree house, which is obviously a good thing for the little one.

So, I know two things about our neighborhood in Brookyln. One, there are tons of Polish people around here and I really might have to become part of that social group given my predicament with #2. Which is, I am positively, categorically, without question, not cool enough to live here amongst the cool kids. I feel like I am in 7th grade again... That year I went to this new school and none of the girls liked me and I cried every night for one year and used the words "clique" and "exclusive" in almost every sentence. It is happening all over again!! I don’t know the bands, I don’t know the dress, and I don’t know the language. The other day I wore my white running shoes and Megan would not walk next to me. My own sister is excluding me. My friend Erica, who is pretty cool, keeps saying things are “epic,” so I dropped that word into a convo this morning when ordering a coffee and of course it was the absolute wrong use of the word and I sounded dorkier then ever. Also, I ordered a diet coke in a restaurant the other day and the waitress looked at me like I was a disgusting child molester. "WE ONLY HAVE NATURAL SODA," she barked back at me. And, this might be common knowledge but don't ask anybody if they carry Splenda. That seemingly harmless request is not received well. The kids just don't seem to like me here.

What to do?
Julia

The total pits

Dear Dennis,

As you might have guessed, Megos and I made it back to the US of A in one piece, only to be broken apart into millions of dejected and bitter little pieces, which are rapidly multiplying into zillions and shmillions of smaller, spiritless and weary pieces. We are on day 12 of our apartment search in NYC and it is truly one of the most grueling experiences.

Yo brokers, can you please stop lying to me??? I’m in touch with about 15 different brokers and each day, one will call me and say, “Julia, I found your apartment. It is perfect for you!” For a second I wonder about his real estate promises and remember I've been burned before, but then I quickly shelve those hesitations and let myself be hopeful and excited and relieved that today is the last day of this nightmarish search. He proceeds to show me a place where you have to walk through the bathroom to get to the kitchen that is barely a kitchen and mostly just a sink, and the bedrooms have no windows or closets and, the place smells like baby diaper filled with vomit, and now that he thinks of it, there is a slight mouse problem, and woops, he totes forgot to tell me that even though he’s listed as a non-fee broker, he’s actually a fee broker for the day.

So, please, please, Mister Brokers, stop your incessant and egregious lies. Here’s the thing: I’m eventually going to SEE that the apartment is not spacious and has no view of anything, and I'll soon be able to smell the revolting odor in the place because, well, I have a nose, and I’m not going to suddenly have the money to pay you a brokers fee, you sneaky slimy sneako, so just stop your fibbing and wasting everyone’s time. We have 5 days to find a place. Holy cow.
I miss Marrakech.

Love,
Julia

To Erica, with love, on cinco de mayo

October 19, 1993
Me and my sister and my brother have a club caled the Kids Club. Are (our) family basement is really gross. Me and my brother and my sister are planning to claim the space and sweep and put in carpeting a couch a tv and a bed my brother is very good at art and he is going to paint a portrat on the wall.
I can't think of anything to rite 1000,000,000,00 times + 14 = 100,000,000,014

Tears on my pillow

To the lovely Alexsandra Ghez and the mediocre-at-best Denis Jones,

Perhaps you have already heard from Megos, but much to my sorrow, she has bid adieu to Marrakech and returned stateside. She left yesterday after a very busy week of goodbye dinners, lunches and drinks. Also, as tends to happen, she met the most wonderful guy just 6 days before D-day. After just one day, Meds and Megs appeared to have been dating for months, so you can imagine how heartbreaking it was for all when she left.

After dropping la petite off at l’aeroport, I spent the afternoon wandering dejectedly around the medina and ended up completely lost. I have no sense of direction and have depended entirely on my sissy to get me around the medina (cue the violins). Without her, I was hopeless and ended up in the Bab Doukkala bus station, where I sat for sometime among other seemingly cheerless faces. As the sun began to set, I decided to terminate my day of dramatic and depressed wandering about, and I also began to crave a Kit-Kat, so I headed home.

I wish I could say my night ended well. Well, the Kit-Kat totally hit the spot, but the movie selection did not. I’m that person who everyone hates watching movies with because I have seen like every single movie ever made. I don’t really understand how that happened because I feel like I spend a very average amount of time watching films, but inevitably, when choosing a movie with someone else, I have seen every possible choice. Anyway, sometimes I pretend not to have seen a movie so the other person won’t be annoyed with me and can think that we are sharing in the excitement of a first-time viewing or whatever. So, Pascal picks out Dancer in the Dark. I remembered seeing it in the theater and crying at the end, but I figured (like the complete idiot I am) that it probably wouldn’t be as sad the second time around and I had already negged his previous 5 selections and could tell he was getting ticked off. I will tell you something guys, it is just as sad if not 10 times more sad the second time around. I was not just crying, but like bawling, chocking, snot-all-over-myself, sobbing for the last 45 minutes of that film. Every time Bjork calls herself "Silly Salma" I wailed. During the last 107 steps to her execution, I had to excuse myself because Pascal could not even hear Bjork’s lines. I think he was pretty grossed-out with me by the end of the movie and I don’t blame him.

Meggie, come back to your sister.

Pain in my heart,
Julia

Out with the old

Hello William Denis Jones,

Your negligence has become egregious and therefore, I shall re-direct my future letters to our more attentive and appreciative friends. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

Now, to start afresh…

Dearest Megan Leafblad and Zareen,

We’re on day 4 of the taxi strike in Morocco and (as strikes tend to do) it has made me realize how totally dependent Meggie and I are on taxis. I’d like to make it clear that my reliance on cabs in this country is not entirely due to laziness. We travel by foot often enough but it does get slightly exhausting. As an ostensible weekend tourist, vendors relentlessly beckon us into their shops (“Just come in for one look… The best price only for you!”), and as women, we’re pretty consistently pestered (not in a lecherous way but in an annoying, like your older brother won’t stop poking you (or farting in your face, which our bro had a propensity for) kind of way). Megan has learned how to say, “please let me be!” in Arabic and I often throw out “laissez-moi tranquil,” but believe it or not, sometimes they don’t listen to us! When it gets to be 80 + degrees, my patience wears thin and it is just easier to cab it.

I’m not entirely clear as to why the taxis are striking, and I’ve heard several different explanations, but I think it mostly has to do with a new point system that people want to enforce, in which after a certain number of points incurred for bad driving, you lose your license. On one hand, the driving is pretty atrocious here and as traffic rules seem to be optional, I wouldn’t mind some enforced laws. On the other hand, I’ve heard (and I’m not saying this is true! What do I know? Nothing! Nothing at all!) that there are some minor issues with police corruption and whether or not they’d enforce the laws properly. I am sure Megos will be in touch with her #1 best friend/taxi driver Omar today to get to the bottom of it.

Well, ZZ and Meggie-L, thanks for being lovely friends. As a reward for your commitment to our letters, Megan and I’ve decided to write and perform for you (and you only!) a two-woman musical medley that features hits from Les Miserables, Rent and Greece. We shall start practicing immediately! We must see if Lew is available to design outfits for us (Sandy and Rizzo meets the Lower East Side in 19th century French attire? I just don't know!).

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,

Julia Andrus Kelly

UBS: A medical condition

Hi, Dennis.

Perhaps you’ve been fortunate/unfortunate enough to have witnessed one of my siblings or me experience UBS (Unprovoked Blushing Syndrome) in the past. It really is something else, Den. This malady is seemingly genetic and entirely unfortunate for its victims. What happens is this: Something not at all embarrassing occurs that provokes the UBS victim to blush. This could be a passing hello, an innocuous inquiry, or even a probing question but the point is the victim is NOT embarrassed or phased by it. As soon as the UBS victim becomes aware of the impending blush attack, he becomes increasingly self-conscious of it and in an attempt to assuage the deepening color, gets even redder and as a result, becomes definitively embarrassed. This of course leads the other person involved to believe that it was in fact his or her question or greeting that prompted the UBS victim’s response. UBS is a violent chain reaction.

One such UBS incident occurred last week. I was having lunch with Pascal and his parents and casually discussing Minnesota and what it was like growing up in the land of 10,000 lakes. I was feeling easy-breezy, and rather on top of my game, in fact, as they were finally understanding my mediocre French, laughing a lot and maybe even having “the time of their lives.” I was cool as a cucumber until Madame F asked me what kind of agriculture is produced in MN. BOOM…I felt the color creeping up my neck to my face and dug my fingernails into my skin because sometimes that helps relieve it. No dice. I became rapidly redder by the second and I saw Pascal’s eyes narrowing in confusion. I was so red at one point that my brain froze and I could not think of one thing produced in MN let alone ONE agricultural product in the entire world. The parents were clearly wondering whether in English, the question “qu'est-ce que l'agriculture” actually meant something like, “how heavy is your period flow today?”

Everyone was totally squirming in their chairs, praying that I would say SOMETHING…anything! But I simply could not. I didn’t even know how to speak English anymore. After seriously about 90 seconds of ridiculously awkward silence, some angelic member of the family changed the subject. The incident passed but I am certain it was not forgotten and very sure his parents will not go around asking that question to Americans anymore.

For crying out loud,
Julia

Livin' la vida locarb

Dear Mr. Jones,

I’m on day five of my semi-Atkins diet (my version doesn’t prohibit fruit, veggies, un peu de wine) and so far, the results have not been particularly outstanding. In fact, I’ve steadily put on weight since I started this thing. However, Mimi and Pascal are really having “the time of their lives” (this is Pascal’s fav new expression… the other night we prepared our usual mostly-inedible dinner for him and mid-way through, he told us sweetly, “Your food is delicious. I’m having the time of my life!”). Anyway, those two rascals like to place whatever carb-ey items are on the table in front of me, feigning dramatic ignorance of my dieting attempts, and erupting in laughter each time. Sometimes Megs breaks out in a song about Kit Kats or Pain au Chocolate, which is starting to majorly tick me off. I kind of feel like that blond chick in Mean Girls who believes she’s on a strict diet regime and unbeknownst to her, the destructive but attractive Lindsey Lohan (ahem, Megan Marion Haynes Kelly) is slipping her heavy-duty carb-powder and laughing all the while. I’m onto you Mimi and unless this stops, and I mean pronto, you can count on your beloved “blankie” taking a suicidal jump into Pascal’s bug infested pool.

Regards,
Julia

Tu Tu eats Toulouse

Cou Cou, Denny!

I’ve just returned from my week in Toulouse, known as la Ville Rose for its unique red brick architecture, and am back in Marrakech, also known as the Pink City for its distinctive mud wall architecture. So, how bout that?

Toulouse is one of those almost impossibly charming French towns. It feels like a village but is the size of a city and there is a huge university – I think the second largest in France- and consequently a very youthful energy abound. Wonderful little bridges that reminded me of Paris soar over the arresting River Garonne. They don’t skimp on religious buildings over there and we visited all the biggies: Saint-Sernin Basilica, the Church of the Jacobins, and the Saint-Etienne Cathedral.

Oh, the family Foltran and co. def does not skimp on eating well. Foie gras is an integral part of every meal. My summer wedding diet is jump starting today after a week of ma regime francaise… My typical day, and I exaggerate not:

Breakfast: Pain au chocolate, eggs and bread with various jams.

Lunch: Foie gras and baguette to start, followed by a Cassoulet (a stew-like dish famous in the region that consists of beans, pork sausage and/or duck) and french fries, then a plate of Roquefort cheese and bread, perhaps a green salad, and ending with a tart de pommes. Various wines throughout.

Dinner: Foie gras and baguette to start, followed by a magret de canard – duck breast- with mashed potatoes, a plate of various cheeses (always accompanied by the French peeps teasing me about Americans being fearful of cheese) and ending with a crème brule or mousse au chocolate. Various wines throughout.

As you might imagine, Deni, I’ve packed on quite a few and in order to fit into Mollie’s bridesmaid dress in a few months, I’ve got to adjust my diet pronto. Other then eating, I also went to my first rugby game, which was supposedly one of the biggest matches in France – Paris versus Toulouse. I purchased a bright red Toulouse t-shirt and scarf to wear to the game, which perhaps caused Pascal a moment or two of hesitation about dating an American-American who kept asking where the popcorn and beer was at the game.

Vaca is over and I've returned to piles of work, an insufficient funds notice and not a few scathing e-mails from my boss. Gotta run.

Later D.

JAK