When Your Fesses Take Over Your Life

I have a problem.

It's my fesses. My buttocks, ass, popotin, plut-plut, take your pick.  It's taking over my life.

I come from a family of bubble butts and have generally learned to accept my fate, but this my friends, this is getting out of hand.

Before officially declaring un gros problème, I consulted Mopain, just to make sure I wasn't have some silly girlish complex.

WARNING: Never ask a Frenchman a question about fat if you don't want the bitter truth.

Me: Babe, I get this feeling that my fesses have gotten bigger. Am I being silly or do you think so too?

Mopain: Oh yeah, totally. I'd say, like 25% bigger probably.

Me: **disbelief**  .... WHAT? Not 25%!

Mopain: (backpedaling), well, no not 25%, but probably like 20%.

Me: WHAT?!!

Mopain: (realizing that he is in deep merde) Don't listen to me! I'm not a numbers guy!

Side note: Mopain is paid to deal with numbers EVERY DAY OF HIS LIFE. 


In another country, my fesses would perhaps be considered an attribute - something to work for; but in France, it's just taking up valuable real estate. On the bus, in the metro, standing in line. My fesses need another 5 inches to be comfortable. Désolée toute le monde.  Poussez-vous.

On top of that, it's impossible to fit into tiny French clothing.  If I can get the pants over my hips, thighs and fesses, it's gigantic at the waist...if it fits my waist, there's no way I can pull the dress down over my gigantic popotin.

Pas génial. 

I've taken to American and British-made A-line skirts as I work to find a solution.

Is it the secretary spread? Is it age? It is all the croissants? What about the biking? All the walking? The 100 bazillion stairs I take on a regular basis? What will happen if/when I have a child and my hips WIDEN? Will I have to start wearing muumuus?  Au secours.

Just last weekend I was shopping for a nice dress for an event, and as a last ditch effort,  I walked into BCBG Max Azria, hoping to find something on the sales rack. When a sales person came up to me to see how I was doing, I told him that the dresses were pretty, but that they were all size small- not workable for my fesses.  He said not to worry, this is a marque Américaine, the small there is like a medium or a large here in Paris!

Thanks man. Thanks a lot.

As much as I love France, my body doesn't fit here. I'm not alone; the majority of my average-built American friends buy their clothes on trips back home. Some even have trouble buying shoes. And yet. pfffffffft. It's so irritating.

What is an average-sized American girl in Paris to do? My American friends tell me to embrace it. My French friends direct me to their dietician, sympathizing and providing encouragement that I just need to "faire attention". Be careful.

So voilà. For today, I'm going to take my fesses for a walk, and maybe try to find a miracle seamstress along the way.

Sad Dancer

Remember this problem?  yeah. ugh.

I'm still not fixed and now it has been over a year since I've taken a dance class.  I'm depressed.

bah.

It didn't help that today I saw this and this and this and this  and this and then I tortured myself with this.

I can't take it. Get me to a dance class. Stat.

Journée de Merde = Pepto Bismol Head

Out of nowhere, Paris can make me feel like the luckiest person in the world.  I'll be sitting in a café having a glass of white with a friend when magic starts to happen. It might be a great song, it might be the French chatter around me, it might be the café ambiance with little candles on each table and old wooden floors that creak as the servers bustle their way to the kitchen. Whatever it is, I love it.  There is no way to describe the feeling - I am where I am supposed to be.

Which is why yesterday was such a pisser. Quelle journée de merde!

Seriously, I'm not sure if yesterday could have been worse - but if it had been I may have done more than just be a pill for the majority of the afternoon. My morning started with a stomachache, followed by an email from my French copain.  We will be spending Christmas with his parents this year (a first - more on that later) and his maman offered to purchase our tickets. Very sweet of her if I do say so myself.  I gave Copain very straightforward instructions on which tickets to buy - I specified that I wanted to fly at NORMAL times and in and out of Orly airport. No Charles de Gaulle! And what my friends was in that email? "Bonjour Mme FrenchCannesCannes, we are happy to confirm your flight into CDG airport at 10:30pm! Aurevoir, your friends at Air France."  

That little tidbit put a damper on my morning and coupled with the stomachache, I was already feeling like a crab.  Right away I could start to feel the beginning of what I like to call a Pepto Bismol head. It's an image that I have of the anger taking over my brain just like it coats an aching stomach in that horrible old commercial. I used to warn my college friends and roomies when I could feel one coming on and they would all dissipate in anticipation of my angry meltdown. If any day was a Pepto day, it was certainly today.

I arrived at work to bustling people preparing for a large meeting. I couldn't complain about the yummy pastries and coffee that were readily available upon my arrival, but I could complain about the fact that my day was pretty much effed right from the start.  Any projects that I thought I may have gotten done on Friday went right down the toilette. The meeting ruled the day and in all of my anger I decided to eat a mini pain au chocolat, a mini chausson au pomme, and 6, yes SIX chocolate/mint cookies that tasted so much like Girl Scount Thin Mints I couldn't stop myself.  Did I mention I've been feeling fat lately?  So as you can imagine, this didn't help.  The deeeeep spiral of irritation just kept spiraling down down down - so far down that my American colleague even offered to hug it out.  I accepted the hug and then went on to eat 3 apericubes (these kind of amazing cubes of flavored cheese that the French like to serve at parties - it's the closest they get to American cheese in a can).  Then, when I went to pop the fourth one in my mouth, I accidentally ate a disgusting walnut flavored cube and had to spit it out. Pepto head a-go-go.

Due to the lack of time for actual working, I stayed late yesterday - a FRIDAY- to get the job done.  This furthered my irritation and I may or may not have had some taffy and chocolate followed by gum that only furthered my stomach problem.  When it was finally time to go home I was still miffed about my flight to CDG (talk about holding onto things), so when I walked outside into the courtyard and it was raining I pretty much felt enraged at the entire Universe. &?/§@&!! YOU TOO UNIVERSE !!!!!!!!  And I could feel the Pepto Bismol head creeping up on me at an alarming rate...

I could have probably walked home had I been wearing my boots that I just recently waterproofed but due to the fancy meeting with fancy people, I had decided to wear a fancy outfit that only went with my ballerina flats.  So much for walking home...and so the metro was the only other option.  I squeezed myself into the only spot left inside next to a man with extremely dirty fingernails. One stop...two stops...I could feel my grimace permeating the wagon....third stop...OUVRIR! The old dirty fingernail man had decided to yell in my ear for the girls in front of me to open the door and I shot him my most hateful look as he exited the metro.  Who do people think they are anyways?!  AHHHHHHH!!!!!  I wanted to warn everyone that the Pepto was about to hit the roof, but here, in this metro car, no one would understand what the eff I was talking about. How does one describe a Pepto Bismol head to a Frenchie? Vous voyez Monsieur, je vais avoir une tête de Pepto Bismol bientôt...méfiez-vous!!  I took all of my strength not to say something snotty à la française about manners to the gross old man. (I may be more French than I think...)

Thankfully, my apartment is an "havre de paix" (a peaceful sanctuary) and despite the fact that I couldn't watch the full episode of Glee due to a faux IP address while I ate my strange-I-have-nothing-in-the-fridge-so-this-is-all-I-could-come-up-with dinner, I could feel the Pepto subside.  

Paris just does that to you - one day you love it and one day you have a Pepto Bismol head.  What can I say? C'est la vie (Parisienne) I guess.

An Open Letter to the Universe

Dear Universe,

I know that you are super busy these days dealing with that volcano over in Iceland and all the other issues in the world but could you hear me out for five minutes? 

I need your help.  I need your reassurance.  As you know, my life is in a bit of an upheaval right now.  Nothing is certain - and I know that in the grand scheme of things this statement holds true every single day of my life anyways - BUT right now not even the normally-certain things are certain.  And that, my dear friend, is hard to live with.

Can you please have my back for the next few months?  You know, just give a shout out every now and again or maybe throw down some random acts of amazingness (even small ones).  All would be much appreciated on my end.

I must say you've done a fantastic job already in sending good things my way so for that I truly thank you.  Once I get through this maze of confusion I will stop bugging you and you can focus on all those millions of other things you have on your list.  Promise.

Merci, Gracias, Danke.....Infiniment,
FCC