Everything I learned about writing, I learned in 10th grade French class.

Hello! I am called Alice. What are you called? Here it is hot. It is very hot. It is not cold. There is no snow. It is very very humid. I like sandwiches!

I have a dog. My dog is named Charlie. I also have a cat. She is Izzy. Charlie and Izzy are not friends. Charlie is very afraid of Izzy. Charlie runs from the cat. Izzy likes to hit Charlie. Izzy has sharp claws. Izzy has small sharp teeth. Bad Izzy! Poor Charlie! Izzy has a bathroom in a box. It does not smell good. I clean her box bathroom. Would you like to go to the library?

At the library there are books.

Charlie wants to go outside. I go outside with Charlie. It is too hot. Charlie does not feel well in the stomach. Here is some water for you! Charlie does not drink the water. No, Charlie lies in the sun. Dogs are not smart. Shucks!

I am eating melon. I eat the kind of melon that begins with water. In hot weather, this melon is very good. Charlie, you cannot eat it! If you eat it, then you will sick on the lawn! It is refreshing.

I sit here outside. There are bees. I am afraid! The bee goes away. Celebration! I am also fatigued. Tomorrow it will rain. I hope. I would like to go to the beach, or perhaps the cinema. I like where it is not so hot. Have you seen my friend Jean-Pierre? I am waiting for him.

P.S. I want to tell you about a new writing. This writing is in the other place, called Wonderland. I forget to tell you! But here it is. Now we eat french fries and dance at the disco!

Comments

[mainja]

what's with the person who signed as 'getting sick of your blog'. if one was sick of a blog, why the bleep would they bother leaving a comment and fouling up the place for the rest of us who love it? why wouldn't they just bugger off. *sigh* sometimes people are dumb.

in the meantime i think you should know that the pen of my aunt is on the table...

[mainja]

oh, and I think zut alors is more equivalent to 'gosh darnit!' or 'darnit all!'

[ozma]

God, Alice you amaze me. 27 comments and counting with this post! Oh, how I wish I could spend this summer writing like this. Why do my papers have to have such things and clauses and other complexities?

[alice]

That sick of my blog person, mainja, is a southern cured-meat addict who thinks he's hilarious. He is more to be pitied than scorned. Or maybe first pitied, then scorned.

[Liza]

Alice, the writing of yours is very amusing. You are my cabbage.

[Liza]

Alice, the writing of yours is very amusing. You are my cabbage.

[honestyrain]

yes, the disco. let's do dance at the disco.

[NewfieldBella]

"Zut Alors!" means fuck or darnit. Sacrebleu or Sacredieu means my God or God darnit. I always thought it odd that the chef in Disney's The Little Mermaid could curse in French and it was okay. I even have it memorized. "Zut Alors! I have missed one. Sacrebleu, what is this?..."

Going back to the dork corner now...

[karen]

Clearly you paid better attention in French than I did.

[SparklieSunShine]

"If you eat it, then you will sick on the lawn!"

Ha ha ha ha ha!

[Kate]

La Boum! Je voudrias aller à la boum avec Alice!

If you didn't see that movie in French class, you should force yourself to sit through it now, and pretend you are in French class. It is being very amusant.

[tsena]

Sedaris copy Finslippy. Finslippy is much better. The New Yorker takes notice.

[Phoenix]

You learned all of that in French class? I'm impressed. All I learned in French Class was that I should never speak French. Or go anywhere where they speak French or watch a movie in French...you get the idea.

[Mauigirl52]

I am at the Cape of Cod. It is cold and rainy at the Cape of Cod. I am hoping it is sunny demain. The dog is hoping also.

Love your "french" - sounds very much like mine. I took 8 years of it and still talk like that. I think once when I told a waiter in Paris I was "full" that it meant "pregnant." Oh well.

[Corinne]

My dog sicked on the lawn last night. It made me not happy. "Merde", I thought. I clean it up with towels of paper.

Like Ozma, I wish to write like this all summer - it beats the hell out of writing in APA style.

The grad school, I like it not much.

[BOSSY]

C'est magnifique!

[Melanie]

That's like my high school German, only far more articulate.

[Mom101]

Haha! If you don;t know it, you must track down Eddie Izzard's bit about learning to say "le singe est dans l'arbre." (It will come in handy if he ever does see a monkey in a tree.)

[RLJ]

je n'ais pas de pantalon... (singing) sorry, got caught up in the whole Eddie Izzard thing)

My students write English like this. In law school. It is a frightening World. I wish they all wrote like you. They'd get bum grades for lack of focus, but hell, I'd have a good time reading!

[Karen]

I can say, "I have no pants" in French. It is one of the very few French phrases I can say, but I can say it with quite a good accent for someone who totally doesn't speak French. I'm afraid that someday it will come in handy.

[Michele]

Now you know how it feels to be a language teacher and have to read hundreds of these essays every day.

My Spanish is good enough so I can basically talk like a human being with a few gender-related foul-ups. My Portuguese, I must employ the circumlocution a great deal. My Quichua sounds like a stuttering three year old. "At six o clock my flight l-l-left. Happy I am to meet you. Thank you everything. Good heart you have. Let's go eat!" Argh.

[Joe]

This is very funny. Thanks.

[Anne]

I always find being sick on the lawn rather refreshing too.

Thanks for the memories of my German penpal!

[Hannah]

Michele, Anne, vous travaillez?Euh, non, nous regardons la television. Pourquoi?Les Duponts arrivent dans une heure.S'il te plait Maman, encore cinq minutes.Pas de question, il y'a beaucoup a faire.Mais nous manquons toujours la fin.(I always figured the mom said, "Tant pis!" here but don't remember how it actually turns out...)

[Sue]

Absolutely love it. Have been transported back to a 1967 visit to Spain to stay with my French penfriend and her family en vacances. Aaaaaargh! Quel horreur. Tears have been streaming down my face reading your post and all the comments. Hubby thinks I've lost the plot ... I think I need to read it all again!