My cousins are so cool.
I can't say that enough.
I can't repeat enough how thrilling it is to find family that I not only respect, but enjoy spending time with...
It shouldn't, rationally, but it does make a massive difference.
And hopefully, this new bolstering won't dissipate when I leave.
In the meantime, last night was Jeremy's big dinner. He organized it for "les jeunes", Helene and his sister Judith and his girl Emilie and Uri who's in town from Israel staying with Helene.
Except Uri apparently forgot about his honorary dinner, and fucked off for London this weekend. Helene's absence was unexplained, but while she's truly stunning, she can be a little flaky sometimes.
Judith was stuck in traffic on the way back from a weekend in Deauville - it's two hundred kilometers but on a Sunday evening, the traffic magics it into a five and a half hour drive back.
I was worried that I was late at eight thirty. Maneouvering myself past grabbing hands on rue de la Roquette at Bastille can take some time when the streets are packed. And I missed my subway due to a loving conversation with my cfoo.
Turns out I was the first, and last to arrive.
Their appartment is beautiful. There's no room on the walls for more than a couple of handmade silk wall hangings that they brought back from Thailand, due to the staggering array of books lining thin wooden shelves.
We ate endive salad and roast peppers and poires au chocolat, and talked of everything. Hacker culture and American presidents and european politics and what shamefully little I could offer of Canadian politics.
Jeremy, twenty four years old and working on his master's in some field of mathematics that I never even got around to asking questions about, knows more about american presidents than most of the people I know, americans included.
I surprised myself by actually being able to participate in the conversation.
And when we didn't know something?
He looked it up in a book, not on the internet.
He knew exactly which book it would be in.
Emilie, little redheaded master's girl who doesn't feel the need to wear ass-pants, studying in a branch of biology that I also never got around to determining, had impressive stories to tell about russian politicians.
They both read at least world-related newspapers daily. Just for informations' sake. I'm ashamed to admit that I don't even make the effort to do that on the internet more than once a week.
And then we talked some more, stretched out on vanilla couches, while Jeremy filled a hand-painted hookah that he trundled in his pack from Turkey with apple tobacco and we talked of how once upon a time it would have been weed.
It should have been embarassing when the smoke went straight to my head because I wasn't accustomed to it anymore.
It wasn't.
I wandered home reluctantly, closing on midnight, racing for the last m�tros, heart filled with the joy of yet another evening spent learning, sharing, doing something other than telling jokes for the masses or hiding behind my machine.
Today?
It's me and the machine again, baby, but somehow I'm more motivated.
Tomorrow is facing the office, and then running off to the movies with Alex in the evening.
If I'm lucky, Seb won't call too many times with problems checking his webmail, and I'll get these last two chapters done.
With all the accents in the right places.
My cousins are so cool.
And Beth? I'm *always* thinking of you. Always. Please don't leave a gaping hole in my heart.