Jacqueline Depestre and the Passion of Colette

Today is my mother's 68th birthday. She married my dad January 1960. She was still in nursing school in Canada and my dad was interning at a Jewish hospital in Harlem. They moved back to Haiti to start a family after the wedding. She was 24.

Now that I am her age, I feel like I am 16 years old with raging hormones and conflicting emotions. Last night, two assholes called me in the span of an hour. One that I will call NoNOb for obvious reasons (his cowardice, of course) and the other, the infamous MARC SICILANO, who just can't take a hint...

MARC: "I FEEL LIKE I DID SOMETHING WRONG"..

MARC left a long pathetic message on my voicemail. What's so sad about it is that I felt sorry for him. My plan all week has been to tell him the words that I have been dying to tell any asshole, the words that would assert my playerdom for the rest of my dating career....

WE WON'T BE SEEING EACH OTHER ANYMORE.

That was my sister SANDRA's signature line during her NYC dating years and last month she passed that torch to her baby sister. "You've got to cut them off right away" she said. "Don't waste your time".

So there I was talking to FLORA and MARC SICILANO called.

COLETTE: Shit (recognizing the 773 area code), I think he's calling me. I am not picking that up.

I clearly chickened out.

My fear is that once I say the fatal words, he will retaliate with a venim so strong that I will just burst into tears thus losing my upper hand...

FUCK YOU. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, YOU ARROGANT, INSECURE BITCH.

I wouldn't have a response for something like that.

SANDRA: Just make sure that when you say those words, you better own them. Mean it.

I feel like if I picked up his call, I would have agreed to DATE # 3 in order to avoid asserting myself. I wonder if my mom regretted date # 1 with my dad....

They were neighbors in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. My mom grew up in a strict Protestant household. She was never allowed to date. My dad was the third son out of six boys and one girl. My dad and his brothers all liked my mom. She was hot. NoNOb agreed when I showed him an old picture of her a couple of months ago in my room...

What sealed the deal for my parents to be allowed to date was the fact that my dad arranged for my mother to go to nursing school in Canada. Her mother was impressed so she gave my mother permission to date him. Did my mother want to go to nursing school? Did she really have the hots for my dad or was it that she just did not have a choice? I think that she told me once that she wanted to be a writer and study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

***ITS NOT EVEN WORTH IT***

FLORA told me not to call back. Just ignore him. Why am I obsessing over this?

***NoNOb IS A LONG STORY***

So now its midnight, as I tuck myself into bed... deep under the covers, cats are finally out of my room and I am slowly drifting off to sleep, I feel my phone vibrate....Its NoNOb.

I shut off my phone and went to sleep.

Kind person:
What are you going to be for Halloween?

Yummicoco:
Ya mutha.

I would never say that.

I have no idea what to be for Halloween. A nun? A cavewoman? A nerd. I have a shitty black wig that is ten years old and I am too cheap to buy a new one. So basically, whatever character I choose must required long black hair.

Last year, I was a 80s hair metal groupie. Long black hair, biker shorts and a black busiter. I also walked around with an Aquanet hairspray can and a sign that read "every rose has its thorn" for authenticity. No one got it.

Random Man on the street:
I'm sorry. I'm stumped. What are you supposed to be?

Yummicoco:
An 80s rock groupie. See my sign?

Random:
oh.

I am hesitant to go to the Motherfucker party on sunday because I am a silly girl and I need to stay home and read a book.

READ LUSTY LADY's COLUMN. ITS FAB.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0443/bussel.php

Stole Your Tongue? Didn't Happen.

I haven't written a post in days. My apologies, DEAR READER.

I never went upstate. I wanted to. I told everyone about it. The plan was to:

1)Drive
2)Meet girl including her current obession
3)Give the boys a little taste of my neurotic, insecure, nyc action

Didn't happen.

girl decided to come home instead. We were supposed to hang out in Brooklyn on Friday but didn't happen. I went to sleep. I slept so much that I called out sick yesterday so that I could sleep some more. I am going to see my INTERNIST on Nov 19.

***FRIDAY***

I met up with SHORTY ROCK at FLORENT. Had a weak glass of wine for six bucks but the frites (french fries to you) were great. SHORTY ordered the steak frites. I had the mussels frites. I liked what she ordered better. I always like what other people order better.

We talked about boys, how I am NOT interested in taking this one particular boy's virginity and how frites are best enjoyed with mayonaise.

I was so zonked after dinner that I flagged down a MR. SOFTEE ice cream truck just to pile on the masochism, as my friend KKEGEL would say.

CONE OF CHOICE?
Vanilla with rainbow sprinkles.

***DO YOU HAVE A POINT???***

Not really. I think that hook ups are grand cliff-notes. A little conversation. A smile. Zero pressure. Kisses without awkward dinner conversation, hand holding without paying for movie tickets. The middle man is cut out, the action is complete and you are free for the rest of the week to lay about with your cats and swoon.

I don't really mean that but hook ups are less agrivating...

Question: Are men just as descriptive about their hook-ups as women are? I was talking about that with my roommate last week. I tell my friends everything. Moment by moment accounts including style and flaws.

Let me stop here.



 

   

And what about Chini?

I had the best cream puff from BEARDED MAN CREAM PUFF on Broadway last night. I sucked the cream off my fingers on the corner of 8th street and Broadway without any shame whatsoever.

Bought Interpol's Antics and Muse's Absolution. I am still poor.

Went home. Watched the rest of top model with my roommate. We love Top Model. I hate Tyra. I love Tyra. I love Top Model. Its a constant battle.

Hung out with my cats, Jackie and Stella. Listened to Interpol for most of the night. All love songs. Too much Carlos D. made me sleepy. Finished my pack of cigarettes. I have officially quit smoking until the next pack.

AND WHAT ABOUT CHINI?

She sat on top of my stereo and I fell fast asleep.

Right: A'ight

So friend is in love. She can't get this dude out of her mind. She thinks he is her soulmate. I think that he is a waste of her time. He hasn't called her since Sunday. I told her what my sister Sandra always tells me "if a man wants you they will never let you go". I am reminded of a conversation I had with the mailroom guy PAPA DOC yesterday evening at the front desk.

COLETTE: So how did you meet your fiancee?

PDOC: At a club. 'down the street. B52s.

COLETTE: Oh I've been there (no I haven't. It was M80s. No...oh well...)

PDOC: I was standin there (he folds his arms and cops a cop-like stance or RUN-DMC)... lookin at her dancin with some guy for like 3 hours. I wanted her so fuckin much...

COLETTE: So you like wanted her...not like...wanted to take her out... but...

PDOC: Yeh, I ain't gonna lie but it didn't turn out that way.

COLETTE: Oh that's good (shit. wow. oh well...)

PDOC: Yeh...was good... Yeh so I was like... I... stood there waitin. I watched how she was dancin... (he moves back and forth. sort of a dance).. pullin back from that man. She was lookin at me too.

COLETTE: Yeah, she wasn't feeling that guy...

PDOC: NAh, I knew... so when she left him to go to the bar...

COLETTE: A'ight....

PDOC... I just strolled over to her....(he walks over the other side of my desk)

COLETTE: Yeah! So....What did you say to her?

PDOC: I was like... yo... I just pulled up next to her... I was like, "Hi... I think you are very attractive. I was admirin you back there while you was dancin. Can I buy you a drink?"

COLETTE: Yeah.

PDOC: Uh- huh. I was so fuckin drunk. But she just wannted some water so I ordered two waters....you know....(he giggles)... I didn't want her to think nothing... so I ordered two waters...

COLETTE: So did you know then that she was the one?

PDOC: Nah. She was little small thing. Light skin. Round ass. I wanted her so fuckin much but she teased me for awhile. Yo, I'm tellin you... when we had ...you know....unprotected sex the first time...

COLETTE: oh. (wait, can people can hear us?)

PDOC: Yeh, she thought that she was gonna have a baby but it didn't happen...

COLETTE: So how far into the relationship did you start having...you know...

PDOC: What? The sex?

COLETTE: No. You know... un....protected?

PDOC: Oh, I don't know like two weeks. She was teasing the mess out of me though... Dry humping n' you know...

COLETTE: oh I hate that. (oh, that's so nice.)

PDOC: She was like, "it gonna be great when we finally do it."

COLETTE: But you liked her. You stuck around.

PDOC: Colette, I liked her so fuckin much.

Early and Often: A Petit Ecolier Story...

This morning, I failed to realize that I looked like the little school boy from le petit ecolier cookie box. I wore a light blue pea coat, orange beret and pink rubber boots. Some fat homeless man on the train nudged me on the shoulder and asked if I had a boyfriend so I guess I did not look that ridiculous.

Thanks so much RKB for the ALFIE premiere ticket. Cute movie although JUDE LAW really doesn't do it for me. I prefer the ugly and despretely wanting types like NICOLAS CAGE in VALLEY GIRL or D.H LAWRENCE. When THEODORA RICHARDS approached LEX's friend DAVE for a cigarette, she asked him what he thought of the movie. He said something but I was too busy trying to place her. I knew I knew her from somewhere. She noticed the dumb look on my face but before I could ask her where I knew her from she ran into her car. Also, she had on a pair of really cute red suede shoes--possibly MARC JACOBS. I am so poor. LEX's pal could've/should've/would've had a chance with her but whatever. I am sure that he will attract another crack addicted heiress sometime soon.

I think that I got over myself a little bit last night but now I feel like crap. I need rest. I need to hang out with my cats more and my finger puppet, CHINI.

FAVE SONGS of the WEEK : VENUS by TELEVISION and SAY HELLO... by INTERPOL.

:-P

Whateva, yo. Brad Pitt can kick Cock Robin's ass.

First rule of Fight Club: YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB
Second rule of Fight Club: YOU DON'T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB
Third rule of Fight Club: DON'T BE A TOURIST OR A PUSSY???

Interesting that there has to be rules in an organization responsible for Project Mayhem and Marla's unmanagable hair. Does everything in life require rules? I am Colette's lack of surprise. I am also a dick masked as a pussy. I saw Team America last night with a pussy masking himself as an asshole.

Team America, hilarous satire, but that is besides the point... I learned that dicks fuck pussy but pussy can't fuck assholes but dicks can fuck them all. This philosophy is supposed to connect to our current government but lets just stick to the facts presented.

So my date, MARC SICILANO, was an asshole and the fucker made me pay for my cappucino. He was an asshole because he only talked about dick and pussy until finally I told him that I HAD a dick so that he would fucking leave me alone. Then he made me pay for my cappucino. Funny enough, he wasn't that bad throughout the date which makes me feel like a pussy for wanting to stick around or a just a callous mercenary looking for a meal ticket...but then again he doesn't want to pay for me anymore so he is of no use to me now. Gosh, I am Colette's lack of sounding like a dick again.

***Whateva, yo***

FRIDAY. I head over to BGA's for a cocktail party in gramercy park. I had a blunt stuffed into my lime green wallet cuz I knew I was gonna get blazed with some homies. LEX, her friend DAVE from Chicago and I got fucked up on BGA's rooftop. I started laughing uncontrollably...

LEX: No one gets the joke, COLETTE

COLETTE: That the point. NO ONE EVER GETS THE JOKE.

So we go back downstairs. Trying be quiet, calm sophisticates on the couch in front of BGA's family, we change the tv channel to VH1 CLASSICS. The hellatious video from the band COCK ROBIN plays. Never heard of this band and I am so thankful to GOD that they did not have any influence on my life whatsoever because I would be a raging pussy right now. Imagine a cross between my thoughts of the applachia mountains and Micheal Bolton made complete with unibrows and square dancing shirts. LEX was trying so hard to appear normal but I could sense my friend's thoughts melting into her hot slice of pizza so I lean in and say...

"Hey, I bet you 10 cents this band's named COCK ROBIN."

We laughed.

YOU OWE ME 10 CENTS, BITCH.

After literally exchanging "whatevs" with BGA's COOLEST COUSINS in the world, I get my stuff together and head over to the CELLAR BAR to meet TOUCHSTONE and her new beau. TOUCHSTONE is drunk and I am still high. We are ingenues in a world full of overexposures. She understands where I am coming from. Anyway, her sister is there with cigarettes...she gave me one. I am Colette's lack of orginality.


***YOU'RE JUST A FUCKING TOURIST***

So Marla was a tourist to Edward Norton's spilt personalites. Visiting his support groups, she invaded Ed's places of solace. They were total opposites, just as my date, MARC SILCIANO, was mine. Visiting the dating world is a wasteful annoyance. He resented paying for my movie, I resented paying for my cappucino. Neither of us got laid last night. FUCK YOU, MARC SICILANO and FUCK YOU, THE BOOK OF RULES, MOST OF ALL.

I finally left him in front of the UNION SQUARE train station. I gave him a nice smile and a kiss on the cheek in the event that he wants to take me out again and treat me to another movie. I walked over to the other side of the square where the stairs are and I lit up a camel true tourist-y style. I burned my right index finger trying to align the fire from my match with end of my cigarette...LEX called moments later.

She's chilling at BGA's, so I walk over. I needed some time to kill before meeting KKEGEL at CRASH MANSION to check out BALISTICA, a band she met at the CMJ FESTIVAL this past week. I am Colette's lack of interest in documenting the minutes between hanging at BGA's place and going to the club to see the band.

Its at CRASH MANSION that I immediately start chatting with BALISTICA's drummer. He is a brown skinned puertoricano who felt comfortable touching my orange beret as I bent over to sign his mailing list. I asked him if he could explain his band's sound to me.

DRUMMER: Well what kind of music are you listening to right now?

COLETTE: Well, you know what... my theme song is... DANGEROUS TYPE by THE CARS.

DRUMMER: (ha ha) We have an 80s influence but there is still that punk element in our sound. You know, breakin' shit and stuff...

COLETTE: but you seem so neat and orderly...

DRUMMER: Is that how you flirt?

Anyway, he handed me his camera and asked me to take pictures of the band. My evolution from a groupie into a groupie band photographer took only moments on the tourism express. My pictures sucked. I think I shot most of their band action without covering the lens with my finger. I went over to the DRUMMER after the show to give him back his camera....

DRUMMER: So what did you think?

COLETTE: I thought you guys were awesome. There is definitely a quality about you that sets you apart from most bands that I see lately.

DRUMMER: Well, its great to hear that from such a smart girl like you.

COLETTE: Yeah, well I am brilliant.

he stares.

COLETTE: I'm being facetious.

he hugs me because he has never heard that word before.

WHATEVER.

Friday and Sodomy

Just received a prank call at work. A guy with a thick french accent....

Me: GOOD AFTERNOON [MY JOB'S NAME]

Frenchie: YEA-ES, ALLO. COULD I TALK TO JONNIE, PLEEASE?

Me: MAY I HAVE A FULL NAME OF THE PERSON YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH?

Frenchie: JONNNIE...PEE-NUUUS.

That was the highlight of my day.

***


At work, I told KNUCKLES MOLONLEY that one of my biggest fears in life is SODOMY. The other is getting thrown into a moving TRAIN...

WELL WHAT IF IT WAS A BIG TRAIN? KNUCKLES asked.



*****WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MAKE LOVE???*****


SHORTY ROCK thinks that guys like to kiss but the fact that they kiss while having sex speaks to style not emotion...whereas MY BADDEST BITCH thinks that because it is physically difficult for a guy to kiss while performing---the fact that they do it proves that there is an emotional involvement. And what about eye contact? My friend PICKLE thinks that to make love, one needs to be in love.

No clue. Could sodomy be an act of love too?

Happy Weekend

BEST PICKUP LINE BY A HOMELESS MAN

Are you over 25... cuz I need a woman.

On my hill I wait for wind...yeah, I like morning wood.

I felt like miserable fuck (MF) yesterday evening on my way home from work. I needed a friend... I called LEX. "uh my minutes are running out... can I call you when I get home?" Nice. I got on the train. Spoke to LEX again. No solace there. Thanks, bitch.

Walking down 4th ave in Brooklyn, I decided to call a friend from HS who would have been my boyfriend if she wasn't a 24 year old woman. "I miss you, baby.... she cooed. You're gonna kill me, can I call you back?" Call me back and with that I hung up on her.

So I was on my own as usual, left to figure it all out for myself. Is this adulthood?

I felt miserable because of a post I was working on entitled "early to bed" which details a random hook-up with a conquistador. Great story but not worth exposing. Which leads me to the idea of exposure... the idea of letting people into my life, making connections with people... its all so difficult for me. I am great with pleasant conversation. It was part of my upbringing as a bourgeois haitienne to be a polite, sweet hostess, even to people who don't deserve my kindness. I smile too much. Anyway, writing about my dealings with the conquistador made me feel like a silly girl who did not respect herself much this summer.

***LET TAKE IT UP A NOTCH***

After checking out MORNING THEFT one night, I was talking with some guy about the band outside the venue. It was all nice, pleasant, surface talk until finally...

some guy: Do you know MORNING WOOD? he smiles.

ME: yah, I KNOW MORNING WOOD. (wink wink. so clever, huh?)

some guy: SO... YOU... LIKE MORNING WOOD.

ME: YEAH, I LIKE MORNING WOOD. (what fun! so perve-y)

some guy: Oh, cuz I saw them here last week. they were pretty good.

SILENCE

WAS HE TALKING ABOUT A REAL BAND?

*** WE GONNA MAKE IT***

So friend called me back last night after 9. I was walking home from the PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP.

friend: yo, baby I' m sorry. so what's up?

ME: Oh I am so depressed. I give off girlfriend vibes to assholes that never even wanted in the first place. I need to meet guys that actually LIKE me. But I say dumb things. I am too nice. I don't know how to connect with people. (fuck you. I know)

She gives me her advice. Thanks. Then she starts talking about her troubles. How the boys talk smack about her...spreading rumors about her...that she sleeps around...that she puffs regularly...

ME: Do you think they know people? (I mean she does DO these things. I love you!)

friend: I don't know but its fucking pissing me off, yo.

ME: They are just trying to break you down. You can't help who you are. You are not like all the other girls so they invent things about you. Its like me. Guys see me. They think I am innocent. They want to conquer me....

Its at that moment that I see it on the corner of 13th and 5th ave- a block away from my apartment. Its was taped to a traffic sign.

Its a poster for MORNING WOOD, who is performing tonight along with LES SANS CULOTTOES at SOUTHPAW in PARK SLOPE.

ME: We gonna be alright. Fuck 'em. They don't know you.

HUmp Day

Knuckles Molonley:
Girls decide if it's going to happen. Guys decide if it's going to happen again

Yummicoco:
good point.

This has nothing to do with what I wanted to post today.

I am a hungry, frightened little lamb.

Paper Cuts

So I answer phones at a major film company. This is just a stepping stone to something bigger, better, perhaps something that involves filing and making photo copies, maybe something involving film. I feel like I am insulting my intelligence, my family and my ego by eating this crap humble pie.

Anyway, behind my desk is a shelf where I keep office supplies like band-aids, tylenol and packing tape. People come around my desk asking for these supplies. People will ask me questions like "So Colette, what do you recommend, tylenol or advil?" And my heart swells because I feel like I am being acknowledged as a human being. A woman just came by for a band-aid. She comes behind my desk and heads for the band-aids. I push my chair up to give her more space. I am too polite.

"Oh, just filling up on my usual, Colette" she says. Her back is turned to me as she looks for a bandage. Her black H&M polyester pauncho brushes up against my arm.

"oh, a paper cut" I try to be social. I try to be the light at the front desk.

"you know it." she fakes a laugh. I am sure she hates corporate kindess/phonyness just as much as I do.

My Candle Burns at Both Ends

and I don't think that it will make it through the night....

I don't pretend to know everything. I know I know nothing. I know that people know I that know nothing. I talk out of my ass because basically all that I know about life came from Dawson's Creek and what my family told me I was supposed to believe. The line above comes from an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem. Am I quoting her correctly? No. Do I care to check online for the correct quotation? No. Am I using the word "quotation" correctly? Maybe. Will this blog totally suck ass? Yes. Will there be grammatical errors? Yes. Will there be pictures? No. Will you think that I am lame and ridicule my self indulgence? Perhaps. Maybe it will keep you interested.

I am long winded, aloof. I believe in love and God, and I believe in myself. I am a hopeless romantic.

To me, Edna's words speak to obvious things... the fast life of New York... hooking up with strange Indian men behind the exit sign of a club called EXIT... my frustrations... the unbearable lightness of being. Time moves so quickly, its hard not to want to drown yourself in your own bathwater to stop your head from spinning. Death is too easy. Lacks drama. I'd rather be destroyed by the excitement. Do I really mean that? No. I have no idea what I want out of life. I am afraid of failure.

Before you completely write me off and not want to read this ever again...Let's begin with the brief origins of YUMMICOCO...

Paris 2001--my daddy, ALIX(pronounced AA-Leeics) paid for me to spend the first half of the summer in Paris at my cousins' flat in the 15th.

So, I was talking to my sisters, SANDRA and FRANCOISE, on speaker phone late one night. My cousin, MICHAELLE, yelled out from the bathroom in the back of the living room/bedroom/one room shitty apartment that my sister SANDRA had been avoiding her AOL Instant messages quite rudely. Her screenname was YUMMIKIKA...

"Well, I thought it was porno or something". SANDRA said. She jumps to conclusions about everything. She is in therapy now.

"No, c'etait moi, SANDRA. No porno."

We laughed. It was all very lame. But I thought that her name was so so cutesy so I said...

"I'll be YUMMICOCO, then" Always talking out of my ass. My friend, PICKLE, thinks that I am uncomfortable with comfortable silence...

YUMMIKIKA's brother, CHRISTIAN (16) found this all very amusing....

"COLETTE, you know what coco means in Creole right?" he asks. We are Haitian but I don't speak Creole so of course I said no...

pussy

perfect.