Talk To The Animals

Have you ever travelled in a foreign country where the language is far from your own? My travels to Europe come to mind, particularly my month in France where I tried to the best of my ability to speak some french, to at least make the effort to show my sincerity in trying. It's amazing how many French (Parisians, even!) will suddenly slip the facade a tad and begin to converse in English once you have good-intentionally butchered their language all to hell. And most of those conversing with you in English are doing so in 'high school English'. Allow me to say that their high school English is nothing equivalent to my high school French. But that's another digression altogether.

When you live amongst those of a different language and culture for some time, well before assimilation there is an acute longing. It's not that you don't love all that surrounds you. It's not that you don't do your best (and improve upon your ability) to hold conversation with those nearest and dearest in what you hope is an acceptable smattering of a language you are painfully learning (because, after all, you are American). Then there comes that day when you're hanging out in the local bazaar/bizarre and suddenly hear the most obnoxious Brooklyn accent that, given different circumstances, could have prompted a fight or flight response and a call to a riot unit. And there you are, introducing yourself to complete strangers who don't know you from Adam (Or, Pierre, if keeping our flavor) and spending hours at the local cafe downing espressos and talking about anything and everything you might possibly have in common including, but not necessarily limited to, a firm grasp of the American language (I'd say English language but I'm far too intelligent for that old adage).

Sometimes I feel like that at work.

There are a few acquaintances at work who are as acutely geeky and well-bred as me. Well, geeky. It's hard, in many ways, to come back to an area where knowledge for knowledge's sake doesn't exactly get you free shots in the local bar. And it's equally difficult to find those who speak actor/music speak and by that I'm not talking about PerezHilton's nasty rants or the latest on Britney (not that I don't follow - puh-lease, this is me!). But to be able to, without warning, be pleasantly holding dissertations on Shakespeare, poetry, Lovejoy, history, and lots and lots of food is like finding those Brooklyn-ites in the heart of Brittany. (A different Brittany if you only keep up with geography through US magazine).

But, of course, like all good American culture, eventually the drawbacks will happen. Sooner or later you will be sleeping with the Brooklyn-ites, whether you are or not.

To this you have to simply say: Folks, I'm not trying to have an affair, just a conversation - and leave it at that. Anything else is completely undignified.

Not that I have been accused. Far from it. But I know how small minds and big gossip mills work. And I know that the extroverted personalities get hit first. And I am, if nothing else, a highly extroverted personality. As most deathly shy people often are. Tears of a clown and all that.

So...in the meantime, my Caribou coffee for espresso, fellow transplants for Brooklyn-ites and my kingdom for a horse.