At each of the hour-and-a-half long lectures that I attended, people kept stressing the human side to business in France. I found this amusing, as if people were insisting because they know of the reputation they have for being cold, cruel, paper-requirement making machines. My theory is that there's a reason the word business has come to mean business, in the sense of "And I mean business!" that my mom used to use when I wouldn't eat my green beans. It's also a little ironic how the word business can also be read busy-ness.

Anyway, I began chuckling to myself when the fourteen thousandth person said, "But really, the business world is all about the person, not about money..." Because, come on guys. I highly doubt that if I come into a bank with dreadlocks, headphones on my ears, and no money - but an enormous heart! - that those men in ties behind the desks are going to seriously consider my project to open a head shop. I really just don't see it happening. But really! If you are very personable and you establish a good relationship with your banker, then really! That's what it's really about! Really!

I became convinced that these supposed specialists and accountants and loan people were just trying to lure us in to make more money for themselves. After all, they're the experts. They know how to work the system to their advantage. We're just fools with dreams.

Then on Friday I went to a free consultation with an accountant. I was nervous because I'm lame and not made out of 100% steel-encased balls. I'm gutsy enough to actually go talk to these people about a project, but it doesn't mean I don't lose my capacity to speak coherent French for the first three minutes. I'm human, people.

But you know what's crazy? My accountant man was human, too!!! He actually had a real-life soul, and he even smiled easily. We talked "business" for a half an hour, and then we talked about the French vs American education system (he studied in Oklahoma of all places). Then we started making fun of professors on their high horses, and then he asked me questions about what I think of France. Then I went back to the subject at hand and he got down to "business" again, and then I told him that I think he has a soul and I didn't believe these accounting types could be like that.

You know what else is crazy? He didn't make me feel like a dumbass for proposing my project. He actually made it sound like it could be a good idea, and, equally as important, possibly even feasible. The French rule of thumb is to discourage anyone from even considering thinking out of the box. Know why? They have rules and a definite 10-step process complete with photocopies of all important documents and a few official stamps. But Mr Accountant? He said, "Yeah, the administrative stuff is a real pain, but it can get done. Your idea could work..." and then he went on to actually PROPOSE solutions to me.

I'm thinking these people weren't just talking out of their asses about the whole "human" thing. Of course, I've only actually talked to one of them. We'll see if those other androids are actually living and breathing creatures, too.

Meanwhile, I had a few spare minutes on Thursday and stopped by the meeting on "The Blog and Your Business." It was a presentation of TypePad, which most of you must be familiar with. The guys giving the talk showed the basic breakdown of a "blog," how it can be useful to a company, etc, etc. I felt a little proud that I knew Movable Type before it was Six Apart, Mega Giant of the Blogging Universe. I sorta wanted to call Ben and Mena and tell them, "You made it! You made it! Even the pathetically slow French are catching on to your technology! I saw at least 50 gray-haired men taking intensive notes at the Six Apart presentation! Congrats!" Really. I felt I had some sort of secret with the presenters, although they probably were wondering who the hell that tall, blond girl in the back who couldn't stop smirking was. Oh, but I'm on to them. Oh yes.

When I was 14, I don't know what came over me one summery afternoon after school but I did something extraordinarly stupid. Let's blame it on new and conflicting hormones that made logical reasoning impossible, shall we?

Yes.

So that particular afternoon, I got the brilliant idea to try to drive the car. I had never driven before, of course, but that seemed like a small obstacle at the time.

I have no idea why we had an extra car at home when I was there alone, nor whose keys I took when this light bulb went off in my head. But the facts clearly show that the minivan was parked on the driveway, and I had keys to use.

Our driveway was on a huge, huge slant, so sharp that sometimes we couldn't get up it in winter if there was enough snow/ice. The front door to our house was up a flight of stairs that sort of jutted onto the driveway at an angle, with a final step slightly bigger than the rest that cut off right at the driveway's edge.

Now, I recall turning the car on without any trouble. I also recall figuring out reverse vs drive, which is an important step in learning to drive (by yourself).

But what I don't think I figured out was that reversing quickly on a very steep hill makes a car go very quickly. The back wheels went down fine, but when I realized I was more or less heading towards our front garden, I started turning. This put the car at the strangest angle to the driveway itself, and I found myself in the awkward position of having the middle part of the minivan stuck on the bottom step up our stairs. Oddly, the car could not go forward or backward. Somehow, I managed to really lodge the van unto that step, and I still to this day would not know how to replicate the act if forced.

Naturally, I freaked out. It would be pretty hard to explain how the minivan got stuck on the staircase in my parents' absence, and it would be even harder to explain why the hell I thought I could just take the car for a spin without ever having learned how to drive in the first place. Panicked, I turned off the engine and got out of the car.

I walked back into the house and sort of paced the living room for awhile, and then I came back out and considered the situation again. Yeah. The car was pretty stuck. And no, I didn't know how to unstick it.

Just then, I heard the sound of construction from up the street. I don't know if they were building the new house on the corner or doing some other sort of repair, but I know there was definetly a reasably-sized crew working up the street. It took me about .036 seconds to realize what I had to do to save myself from a rather awkward parental encounter.

I marched up the street and called over two of the construction workers. Because I was 14, four came over instead.

Me: Hi, I have a sort of embarassing situation and I was wondering if I could use your help.
Guy 1: Um... what kind of help?
Me: Well, I just got my license and I wanted to take my parents' minivan for a drive, but somehow I managed to get it stuck on the staircase...
Guy 2: Yeah?
Me: Well, I was just wondering if maybe you could lift it off for me?

I shit you not, a group of four burly construction men came down the street and lifted my parents' minivan off the steps. For good measure, one of them asked if I wanted him to straighten it out on the driveway. Blowing my entire just-got-my-license act, I nodded and thanked him vigorously.

They all had quite a laugh, but can you believe my luck?

That class was followed quickly by my worst class. The kids are terrible; they spend all hour talking and I have had to seperate them and yell and threaten in the past. Today? One girl began talking while another student was reading. I did what any self-respecting teacher would do and made a bit of a spectacle out of Ms Chatterbox by asking her a direct question about the passage. She freaked out, said she didn't know, then tried to get out of it. I just sat down in a chair in the middle of the classroom and waited. I think that freaked the Frenchies out, because anything unorthodox really throws them for a loop: What is this??? Teacher sitting at a student desk?!! The world as I know it is over!!!

Everybody was silent while Ms Chatterbox re-read the paragraph we had all just read outloud together, and then she answered me. After that, nobody said a word, everyone raised their hands, and we had a great discussion. It was amazing. Like night and day, or like Ashlee Simpson and Bob Marley.

My last class was with the other older kids, and today was our last day. They asked me why, and I said "Because you never come to class, and your head teacher has decided it's stupid for me to teach you when there are other kids asking to have classes with me. Why should people who aren't interested get priority?" I felt a little bad because the five that were there were the five that always come, and the rest are the ones who caused the decision to be made. But still...

So I did a class where I laid out some really simple stuff that they obviously needed to review. They all started understanding halfway through the class, and once they caught on, it was quite a party in there, let me tell you. And English grammar review party. It can get pretty jumpin'.

After class, one of the students came up to me and said, "Could we please continue with you? I learn so much more in your class than I do with the other teacher. Isn't there any way we could work it out?"

Hearing that, I think I might have high-fived myself in my head at some point. Maybe.

Then I got home, ran some errands, did the dishes, wrote my Spanish essay, took a bath, and then left for Spanish class. Yes, it's sorta weird to take a bath at 17.00, but my house was cold and I wasn't home long enough to bother putting on the heat. Getting in a big tub of hot water really does the trick in those situations.

And Spanish was great, as always, except for the fact that in the middle of class I said something in English and didn't even realize it. Just poof! Said it, kept going, and stopped only when I noticed people were giggling at me. After class, we all went out for drinks and talked shit about the people who were in the class but dropped out after two weeks. Those losers don't know the fiesta they're missing.

Ok, I'm going to bed now. I'm going to go for a whole eight hours tonight. Just watch me.

The French Sigh annoys me to no end. Unfortunately, I also think it is actually more prevalent than the comparatively quaint angry "Oh la la" equivalent.

The worst, however, is the One-Two Punch. If the wait at the post office, the doctor's, the cash register - wherever - gets too long, someone is bound to sigh (punch one), and then let out a breathy, low, and menacing "Oh la la..." (punch two). I would like to strangle the double-action types, because guess what? Their bitching doesn't get the line moving any faster.

One would think that a in country notorious for its long waits and completely disorganized lines, people would have just sucked it up and learned the fine art of patience. Unfortunately, it is usually my order-obsessed American self who remains the most at ease with the impeding doom of an added two minutes of line time. In those situations, I usually mutter my own American swiss army knife to myself quietly so as not to disturb the distraught Frenchies any further. I'm sure you can all guess what that swiss army knife might be.

I also remember thinking that something was off, but then trying to convince myself that I was only thinking that because black men never came to our neighborhood, and I'm a racist bitch. Trying to shake off the racist assumptions, I convinced myself that Max's unexpected visit was normal despite my gut telling me it was sort of strange.

It was sweltering hot, and Max asked if he could have a glass of water. I told him I would have to shut the door behind me so the dog wouldn't run out, so could he just wait on the porch? He obliged, and I went and fetched the water.

He thanked me, drank it, made small talk, and left. But I felt really, really weird about the whole thing.

If this were to happen today, I know I would handle his visit differently. It was weird to have someone knock on the door at 4 pm. It had never happened before, and I was thrown. I was also 17 and midwestern, and didn't really know how to say no to people.

I've since learned that, in these situations, a lot of times people are really selling something. I've also learned that a lot of other times people are just using the door-to-door scheme to case out houses to rob. So, in retrospect, knowing what I now know, I probably wouldn't have entertained him for fifteen minutes on my doorstep.

Under ordinary circumstances, I also probably would have forgotten this story and Max would have not played any part in my memories of being 17.

However, three or four days later, I was home alone at night. Our house had three floors - two main floors and then a furnished semi-basement. I say "semi-basement" because our house was built onto a hill, so only one half of the "basement" was really in the ground. On the opposite side was a back door that led to our yard.

On this particular night, I took a shower early in the basement bathroom and then headed upstairs to get something to eat. I watched some TV while eating and, when finished, turned off the TV. Oddly, I heard the television downstairs from the kitchen, and so headed back down to turn it off.

However, when I got into the den, there was no TV on. Surprised (I'm not one for hearing things, nor am I one for investigating things if I'm not sure I hear them), I thought it must have been the TV on in my parents bedroom on the main floor. I trucked back up the stairs, into my parents room, and saw the TV wasn't on there, either.

At this point, I started to get a little worried. I had definetly heard voices. I tried wildly to convince myself that this was something electronic on in the house: another TV? A radio? Music? What?

It must be music in my room then, I decided, and I quietly edged my way back down the stairs and into my room.

Nope, nothing there either.

I walked back out into the den to think, and it was then that I noticed our patio door was open. I mean, fully. Like, two feet. It had not been open when I had come down a few minutes prior. I am still to this day convinced someone was in the house.

Whether or not the weirdness of Max's visit was related, I obviously can't be sure. I like to think not. However, I always link the two abnormal events in my mind regardless, especially since people told me that often door-to-door salesman aren't really looking to sell anything.

I was thinking about this, and all of it's creepiness, this morning in the shower. For old time's sake, I went over the graphic details of how I went around the house and turned on all the lights I could, holding a phone in my hand as I made the rounds, locking all the doors. Then I stayed up in the main room until my parents came home.

Replaying the scene was sort of fun in the same way watching horror films in the dark can be: it gave me the shivers and lots of feelings of dread. I turned over, again and again, the possibility of the Max connection, and thought about how creepy it would be if he really HAD been casing out the house.

After I finished my shower, I got dressed, ate some breakfast, did some stuff, blah blah. Then the doorbell rang.

Oddly, it was a young man who was selling drawings to get money to pay for his stay in a shelter. I live on the sixth floor, we have no elevator. People do not come here to sell things. His name was Lionel, and he was tall, good-looking, white, with a silver tooth. Silver, people!

Forgive me for not opening my door any further than I could fit my face through. Not that we have anything to steal, but you can understand my caution. Had it been any other day, I might not have given it a second thought. But today, there was no way I would even give him a glimpse of what was inside.

"What's that?" I asked, confused. For frequent readers, you might remember the embarrassing history of presents in our relationship. It's not prettty. Five years of being together, and the last present I got from him - three years ago - was less than glamorous.

But you know what? This time around, he bought me a beautiful bracelet that I love. He was obviously a little nervous about giving it to me, but I was almost speechless when I saw it in my hands. I was so touched that I just kept saying thank you over and over again.

"It's funny," he offered, a few hours later as we were on his way to him mom's. "It's sorta sad, or it might seem sad to say this. I don't know."

"What?" I asked.

"Well, it's like I rediscover you when you come back," he said, and paused. "... I see your smile again for the first time, am struck again by how beautiful you are, am reminded why we're together... I just rediscover you again. It's such a wonderful feeling."

"Why is that sad?" I asked, in absolute shock at his display of emotion. This is more sappy talk than I have gotten in years.

"Well," he said, "Because I should do that every day. I'm just so spoiled that I forget how amazed I should be to be with you. I should be more aware of it daily - you deserve it," he said matter-of-factly, and we were on our way.

My heart was all gooey for the next hour, at least.

And plus? Do you know what? My mom bought him a new outfit for Christmas and he looks MEGA hot in it. I mean, I might have to ask my mom to stock up on all varieties of the pants she bought him, because DAMN! I love coming home to that. Amen!

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PS Comments have to be authorized now because I got attacked by spam while on break, and am just putting up this solution temporarily until I figure something else out. So if you comment, don't be sad if it doesn't appear right away. It will soon enough.