Posted April 6th, 2003 by Michelle

I’m thinking about renaming my blog “The ‘Roid Report”. I think it’s catchy. And really, everyone is terribly interested in the goings on of my bum, right? Well, here’s today’s forecast: bigger, more tender, and more painful than ever!!! Thanks very much!!!! Actually, that’s not the forecast, that’s the hindcast. The present-cast of midnight Sunday. I’m thinking about going back to my primary doctor to see if she has any brilliant advice. I refuse to miss my bike, my yoga, and my lyfe in genrul for another minute. There must be something I can do.

Need I mention the “heavy snow” predicted for tomorrow? Hmm? April is such a tease. Although I just got a really ridiculous image of running out into the snow, dropping my pants, and cooling my bum in the flurry whiteness. Perhaps some thoughts I should keep to myself.

Working the bar today, I met a French woman who owns an antique shop on 10th Street. She spends five weeks here, then five weeks back in Paris. We talked about why my restaurant is slow: bad economy, bad war, bad weather. I hesitated to ask her about the war, since I wondered if she has already been harassed, when my co-worker Stephen asked her flat-out if she had suffered since the war started. Yes, was her answer. No one is buying anything from her, and the day before, she was ordered out of a taxi. “What is your accent?” the driver asked. When she replied “French”, he pulled over and made her get out.

This makes me furious. Everyone else, my other co-workers, listening in, were sad and consoled her but I was beside myself. I don’t think that the kind of people who read this blog are the kind that would EVER do ANYTHING like that, but just in case: I say to you, taxi driver, french-wine boycotter: grow up. Grow up. Think for yourselves. Think just one original thought. Or go live in a cave. If you are going to boycott French products, do two things. First of all, pick up a paper or do all of five minute’s research online and figure out every other country who did not support this war. Boycott all of them. Except, first, find out how many Americans are employed by those companies. For just one instance, Michelin tires. Guess what? Huge plant in the south! Tens of thousands of Americans employed! Oh, and Perrier, and all those French wines? Imported by local American buyers, who make their living off of those liquids! Seriously. I mean, I know the knee-jerk reaction to do SOMETHING, however small, to feel like you are part of something, but rather than be reactionary, be informed.

I bought the French woman dessert (Meyer Lemon Icebox Cake) and gave her my card and told her whenever she wanted a table, give me a call. And I reminded her that not all Americans are alike. “I know zat, ” she said. “I love ze Americans. Zey are just being foolish. And I know zat many are smart and educated and beootiful like you.” This woman was seventy going on, quite literally forty-five if a day, and I knew for sure that she could take care of herself. Oh, god, another thing she said: “Ve (meaning New York) vere ze ones who vere attacked. But zis war? Bush cares not vat ve tink. Ve get attacked, ve say ve don’t want zis war, Bush invents connection to 9/11, he goes to var. Who cares vat New York thinks. Stupid. But I still love zis country.”

I’m off to bath and zen to bed.