d graham kostic [lives].

french 101

There was not a cloud in the sky the other day. It was bright blue and it looked like the city was in front of a flat wall painted bright, bright blue. Our new home is in the Ukranian Village or West Town or a little South of Bucktown. I just sort of say it like a question when people ask since I don’t really know to be exact.

‘So where do you guys live?’
‘Oh, we live in the Ukranian Village?’
‘Me too! Where?’
‘Like right off of Erie, close to Chicago?’
‘It’s such a great neighborhood.’
‘Yes, the Ukranian Village is just so, so awesome.’

Phew!

But back to the sky. So being west of the city, it’s a really pretty drive into downtown. You sort of watch it grow in front of you. And especially when I’m riding on my scooter on a beautiful day like that day, it’s just plain pretty. Rusty, the scooter, he just loves his new home. We just sort of drift down the road and sometimes I like to paddle the pavement with my feet as we glide down the street. It’s a funny sensation and I’m sure I look like an idiot. BUT if I didn’t do everything that made me look like an idiot, I’d be pretty fucking boring.

So here I am on this beautiful day. I just shot something for Glossed & Found—this, actually—and now I’m on my way to my first French lesson. I turn right onto Dearborn, park Rusty and walk into the Alliance Francaise.

‘Bonjour Monsieur.’

‘Bonjour.’

Now, I took four years of French in high school but really that’s nothing. That’s like saying that I could fit in my sister’s old jeans. So you see, there was once a time where I could ask someone in french if they were hot or cold while wearing my sister’s 26 waist jeans. Those days are long gone, sadly.

‘I’m here for the beginner’s class,’ I say, upset that I couldn’t even ask her how she was doing. Or that I think her Sally Jesse glasses really frame her face well.

Because I registered late (on a last minute’s whim of inspiration after our trip to France) she had to do some digging for my name. The lady behind me, who was standing uncomfortably close to me, scoooooched forward to lean over the desk and say ‘that’s my name.’ pointing at the sheet since she didn’t want to wait for my name to be found. 

‘Ah madame, oui, oui. Beginner’s, as well?’

‘Advanced Beginnger’s,’ she said.

She was wearing a scarf around her neck and if I had a baguette I would have slapped it across her face. Advanced Beginners! Whateva.

The receptionist with the big, red glasses found my name and gave me a black nylon briefcase with some text books. And pointed me in the direction of my room: a small, white thing with no windows, tiny desks and pictures of famous French landmarks.

When I arrived, there was one other student in the class. A blonde woman in her 40’s. We exchanged a very feeble ‘bonjour’ and I pretended to text message on my phone to avoid having to awkwardly talk French—a language neither of us know but somehow think we should know—to each other.  Shortly after, a small Japanese girl in a pea green sweater set with pearls sewed on the collar came in and sat down. Another hushed ‘bonjour’ and we sort of giggled a little bit.

Our professor came next. His name is Frank. We talked a little about ourselves and why we want to learn French. Turns out that the blonde woman is a singer and wants to be able to sing better in French. AND, get this! Her last name is French.

We all died laughing! An American woman whose last name is French sitting in the bottom of the barrel French class. We all just thought that was the funniest thing ever.

So we started with the basics—Hello and Nice to Meet You. And How are you doing? And What’s your name? And what do you do?

Quelle est sa profession? Or Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie?

I started:

‘Je suis journaliste,’ I told them. I should have made up something more fun. Like an actor. Or a mime. Or a dog walker. But alas, my vocabulary is thin. Journaliste is far from what I am, but I couldn’t find the words (or was too afraid to ask) how to say Creative Director. 

Both of the other students? They are both ‘mere au foyer’.

Housewives!

There was something so endearing about our small class. Just the three of us, coming in to try and learn French. It seems very, very ambitious. But the effort is genuine and pure and although I had my pen out and ready to take notes of the funny things that happened during the class, I can’t bring myself to poke fun at my fellow classmates. Because I sound just as stupid as they do when we have to talk aloud.

The two hour class is made up a lot of moaning and grunting. The professor will say something and then we’ll repeat it, and when our EH or our UH’s are not sounding right, he’ll say ‘EH’ and we’ll say ‘EH’ and then he’ll say ‘EH EH EH” and we’ll say ‘EH EH EH’ and ‘UH UH UH’ and if you walked by, you’d think that we were having some sort of orgy with dumb people or cavemen. 

Comment vous appelez-vous?
Je m’appelle Graham.
Enchante, Graham!
Enchante, Akinae!
Qu’est-ce que vous faites dans la vie?
Je suis mere au foyer. Et vous?
Ah bon! Je suis journaliste.
Ou habitez-vous, Graham?
J’habite a Chicago a cote d’Ukranian Village?
Moi aussi.
Bonne Soiree, Madame!
Bonne Soiree, Monseiur!

So we go back and forth and pretend to have these cocktail party talks with our fellow classmates. It would be a lot more fun with cocktails, I think. And the funny thing is that we stare right into each other’s eyes as we talk—seeing every ounce of agony when we forget a word or pronounce something wrong or just don’t plain no what to say. But yet, all I know about these people is where they live, what they do, what language they speak and their name.

And that’s the class. And then for the rest of the day, in my head I continually say things to myself like ‘My name is Graham. I am a journalist. I live in Chicago near the Ukranian Village. I speak English. I do not speak French.’ And then I hold conversations with myself in front of Fran who just stares at me.

Speaking French, C’est Magnifique, non?

call me frenchie.

I’m not really sure why I stopped writing in this blog. I guess I got kind of bored. And I also kind of think that sometimes writing about yourself seems weird. Or superficial. Or like ‘hey! look at me! look what I’m doing! and where I’m going!’ And sometimes I don’t like that attention. It’s also been an incredibly stressful month moving back to Chicago. Good stress. Not bad stress. And the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my feelings.

UGH. FEELINGS! 

Anybody would say that talking about your feelings is a good way to deal with your feelings, but I just sort of wanted to live in the moment for a bit and not talk about my feelings. Because sometimes my feelings are so goddamn dramatic. 

Fran and I moved from Boston to Chicago last month. We bought a little house in Chicago that is in need of some serious TLC. But it’s a cute space. And I’m sitting in our kitchen right now that looks out onto a private brick patio that has ivy on all the walls. It’s a fantastic little place. 

But I do miss our little gem of a place in Boston. It was so cute. and everything had a place and you don’t realize, until everything doesn’t have a place, that having a place is important in life. i will be excited to have our place finished and back in order again. 

a sidenote: i forget if i capped i’s or kept them lowercase. lowercase, right?

I  i just called to register for french classes. i was so inspired as my parents and Fran and I just visited Paris and Antibes for a little week vacation. Basically, it was fantastic. We stayed at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Cap d’Antibes which was like this magical little gem—this big old house that has a long, dramatic walkway down to the ocean. In the morning, I’d pull open the curtains, open the windows and the shutters and lean out really far and look at every little thing. there were cyprus trees. and pine trees. and palm trees. and the sound of a fountain nearby. and there was a seagull who was keeping watch on the massive stairs. and then below us, i watched a woman eat breakfast. she had her robe on and ate a bowl of raspberries and a mini-baguette and tea. 

so i want to register for french classes. i took french (under the direction of madame yvonne fawell) in high school but that really doesn’t mean anything. on our trip, i’d have to have had two + glasses of wine to say ‘merci’ at full volume.

‘why do you want to take french classes?’ the on-line placement test asked. I wanted to answer: well, it’s a long story, but when my boyfriend and i were traveling back from puerto rico, we were in line for security and a couple in front of us said ‘look at that french couple.’ well, i turned around to try and find the chic french couple they were referring to, but all I could see was bad-beachside-vacation-braids and hawaiian shirts and then i realized: ‘They’re talking about us, fran! That couple thought we were a french couple!” And so, I want to learn french because I want to be able to pretend like I’m french in places where people might not know the difference between being french and wearing stripes and carrying louis vuitton. 

But instead, i wrote: “because i want to have a more rich experience when i travel to france.” 

and then the exam—’in french, please tell us your name, where you live, what you do, how old you are. be as detailed as possible.’

So i wrote:

Je m’appelle Graham et j’ai trente ans. J’habite dans Chicago, mais j’aime beaucoup voyager. Je travaille dans le presse a la website GlossedandFound.com.

translation (i think): My name is Graham and I am thirty years old. I live in Chicago but I like to travel a lot. I work in the press at a website called GlossedandFound.com.

However simple and to the point that is, I would really like to be able to say the following in french:

Hello dear friend! My name is D. Graham Kostic. My first name is actually Dennis which is the same name as my devastatingly charming father Dennis. Although my boyfriend and I call Chicago home, we are avid travelers and like to explore. I just turned thirty years old but I still have the sense of humor as a tween.

i called the alliance francaise this morning to confirm that they received my placement exam and the lady said that an instructor would call me later for a more thorough oral exam. and that scares me. i’m brushing up on my high school french vocab cards as we speak. 

so that’s it. i’m going to write more in this here blog because it actually does feel good to write about my feelings—be them dramatic or not dramatic. and besides, no one reads this thing anyway. except maybe elise schmitt. who will be happy that there is something new. 

au revoir my dear friends. until next time. 

AND BECAUSE I’VE BEEN SO BEHIND, HERE ARE SOME LINKS
TO OUR RECENT TRAVELS & GENERAL FUN:

ITALY // THE GREENBRIER // PUERTO RICO // G&F BEHIND THE SCENES

i’ve let you down.

This poor tumblr. He’s been so lonely. Sorry tumblr.