"Come on Hitler, I'll buy you a lemonade"

That's my favorite line from a bizarre movie I saw about a month ago. I wrote it down so that I'd be sure to mention if when and if I ever decided to blog again. And here I am, doing just that, without missing a beat. Kidding. I know I've completely lost the readership I worked so hard to win-over in the last year-and-half. But for any of you still down with the soothing sounds of Andrew's life, I will make an effort. So it's a gray Friday afternoon in gay Paris, and I'm at the office, where I spend endless hours writing crazy questions which relate to grammatical concepts in the bizarre and mind-numbing language of English. I'm really not sure how I arrived at this occupation, but I do know that the life of a grammarian is not for me. As for the life of a frog, that remains to be seen. Just as people who have hair (they think they're so perfect, lording over victims of male-pattern baldness with their full heads of hair, their flowing locks and tresses) have good hair days and bad, I have good French days and bad. Lately I've been questioning too much: My raison d'etre, my general coolness, my adultivity, the uses of interrogative pronouns. Questioning is nothing new for me, but I find myself in new situations constantly here, meeting new people who judge me based on the things I say in this language which I'm not so down with, much like dangling prepositions. Then I think, well what would I say, in English, to this guy who seems pretty cool, or this girl who seems pretty hot? Then I realize that I have no idea. I seem to have completely lost the ability, if I ever had it to begin with, to impress upon people just how (insert adjective here: bald, hot, pierced, funny, jewish) I am. I suppose I had these type of issues in the States too, but somehow I drowned out the voices in my head with heavy doses of Sportscenter and pick-up basketball, and occasionally morphine. Here, with my fading interest in the poor start of the San Francisco Giants, and with the increasing number of hours I am working, and the insistence of French people on discussing issues of relative importance including politics, cultural differences, wine, cheese and money, I often find myself at a loss. When I meet people I find it difficult to talk about anything aside from work. And discussing multisyllabic adjectives of comparative degree, while charming at first, doesn't get you to second base quite like it used to in the golden age of grammar, when linguists ruled the earth with the velveteen touch of a dandy fop. That said, I've taken a renewed interest in the audacious musical works of Tenacious D, the super duo of Jack Black on lead vocals and Kyle Gass on lead guitar. For any of you who aren't familiar with their unique brand of acoustic-power-ballad comedy, I suggest you download their work post-haste. 'Sex Supreme' is a good track for starters, followed by 'Tenacious D time' should give you the feel of what they are all about. I nearly forgot to mention that for third time since I've been in Paris I've stepped in a huge pile of shit. If it didn't happen so frequently this would almost be funny, but it has gotten to a point where I am convinced that the dogs of this nation are hell bent on defiling my enormous sneakers with their gifts of stink, and I am fast becoming the guy you can't take anywhere. Man, I'd hate to be him. I'm going end this post here with a somewhat firm commitment of finishing it relatively soon.

High time for blogging, that much is certain. The mood is good. The mood is good because I seem to have found a job. A job which will keep me in Paris for at least six months, or well into the stretch run of the baseball season. Despite my general shyness and on-again-off-again French skills, I have found some work that is pretty damn interesting, which I will be a bastard about, and explain in further detail at a later date. Suffice to say, it requires the English language, that was pretty much a given. What wasn't a given, is that there maybe stock options involved. Other buzzwords which are associated include, start-up, business venture and investors. Concepts with which I'm not too familiar with, but I am looking forward to understanding better in the future. I'm also in a position to recruit English speakers and writers, so I'm hereby extending an informal invitation to all my freinds who are willing to give Paris a shot, and to come taste the unholy power of which I now wield. And so the mood is good. We might even be approaching a moment in time where I re-establish contact with my friends, so that will be fun.