la ville de grenouille

i've left my home in France for Willimantic, CT, aka Frog City...

So far I've been somewhat successful in my attempts to keep life entertaining. For instance, today I crossed the Willimantic Footbridge, which is in fact the only footbridge in the United States which connects two state highways and three different forms of transportation. 

I've had to make many trade-offs: instead of strolling along the Seine, dating Frenchman, and eating cheese in parks, I've grown accustomed to a new way of living...that is, strolling around the Uconn campus, zero dating, and eating bar food in bars.

So today, day 27 of fruitless job searching, I rode my bike, Shelly, down Main St. and put up these adorable signs offering French lessons. Although Willimantic does have a large population of drunken Easterners and crackheads, one can also find a plethora of art and music supply stores, a skateboard shop, a Spanish bakery, a micro-brewery, a cafe and even a head shop. I figured that the majority of those with an interest in the French language would be more of an "artisty-type". This reasoning is how I found myself today, standing in the middle of a guitar shop, being hugged by a middle-aged man.

After this strange man hugged me, I realized something. Americans are not prude, a platitude that I have supported for too long. Prude is not the right word to describe the horny college students and the creepy barflies. What I should have been saying, to explain this immense cultural difference in dating rules and regulations, is that Americans are crude. It's an easy mistake to make.

Picture me, minding my own business, trying to make it through my next couple of months of being a part-time, broke college student and some creepy middle-aged American, pot-belly, stupid baseball hat, stubby fingers, trying to lay on the charm.

Ugh.

Let me get to the point. So I'm standing in the middle of this guitar shop and I'm being hugged by a short, balding, middle-aged man who has just tried to say something in French, "je parle pas francais" or something of the sort. Then he cracks a joke about the irony of the phrase. And then, he moves in for the kill and HUGS me. 

You have no right to put your hands on me, Mr. Guitar Shop Owner. You are tactless and I deem you the pervert of the day. You are a crude man. 

Two days ago, while sitting alone at a bar, a man (who looked eerily similar to Mr. Guitar Shop Owner) sat down next to me and started up a midly interesting conversation. I half-ignored him. After about a half an hour, he invited me over to his place to listen to his Grateful Dead collection on his new stereo system. 

He also reassured me by telling me that he was not a creep.

This is also crude. Lacking in intellectual or judemental perspective. Are these just products of the watered-down American education system? Or sex-starved husbands? I need answers. And some redneck repellent.

until next time.

-july