4.02.2025

A couple walks by me with a wrinkly dog and I can't tell if they're calling it Rambo or Rimbaud but if I ever have a Quebecois pet I'm naming it both. Rambo Rimbaud get off the canape that's where we keep the blood.

Amongst the amenities in my new short term rental is a book of short stories in French. They're trite and geared toward language learners but I understood the first one no probleme. Besides I'm getting a little sick of the Duolingo characters at this point. Why do they think it's funny to make Lin a nosy conspiracy theorist? Tee hee she's watching you and Helen Keller wasn't deaf.

I was communicating with a renter over Craigslist and they said 'Im Rachel', describing the location, and I responded 'Nice to meet you Rachel', and they replied 'No way I'm a guy!', like it's my fault they got their prepositions mixed up with their pronouns.

Frenchly speaking these things happen to everyone. My biggest weakness is knowing the order and occurrence of 'ce' 'cette' 'en' 'de' 'du' not to mention articles like 'le' and 'la' and when I speak I just mumble through those or wipe my hand over my mouth.

The first principle of linguistics and one of the few I remember is 'language is arbitrary'. This is nowhere more true than when you're trying to explain why we get on a plane rather than in one or the subtle differences between to and at and from and don't even come at me with fro or we'll get into some vestigial phrase shit and trust me neither of us wants that.

Guest Artist: BK, from the series 'An Organized Trainwreck'
https://www.instagram.com/design__by__bk?igsh=cXBpZXpyem9najdh
(artist bio appears in the 3.28.2025 Weekly Digest)