Audrey Tautou, I'm Coming for You

Moving into a new house, I’ve been given the opportunity to decorate a new bedroom. Few things can keep me up into the night, but decorating and rearranging does the trick. At first, I grew frustrated with myself. Early wake-up calls rendered dark circles under my eyes (which were filled with crusties, too, coincidently), blotchy red skin, and bed head. Other chores and studying were being left by the wayside. One night, as I was arranging old photo prints on my wall, I shouted to myself, “GO TO BED!” (I really did say this out loud) At such a scolding, my other half (I generally view myself as two people. One of me is rational. The other me is not) jumped to its defense. ‘Very rarely do I find anything that makes me excited or motivated, so why can’t I indulge this rare creativity by working into the early hours of the morning?’ it thought. And so I did. I moved furniture, made collages, hung artwork, and screwed in coat hooks. All of this came with a sacrifice (my sanity, obviously), but I now love my room so much that I can hardly bare leaving it.
The idea I had in mind while designing my room is that I wanted it to look like a Parisian apartment and it absolutely does. Sometimes I even slip on my best vintage dress, a beret, and spectator shoes and stare forlornly out the window at the patrons on the patio at the coffee shop across the street, all the while French accordion music plays weakly from my itunes. As a French girl, I work at a coffee bar and am surrounded by kooky characters all day. The same goes for my apartment building, where I secretly do good deeds to make my fellow Frenchmen a little bit happier. From my window, I can peer down on the lively streets of Montmarte, the curling Sacre Coeur in the distance. And me? I am quirky and adorable. I find pleasure in small things like the cracking of an ice cube as you drop it into water. Always alone, I yearn for a kindred spirit, another person as adorably quirky as me. No one answers my call until one day when I find a photo album filled with photo booth pictures of strangers…
Perhaps this sounds familiar. Maybe it reminds you of another dark-haired French gamine who resides in Montmarte and works at a small restaurant delivering café au lait. Yes, there are some slight resemblances between Amélie Poulain and I, I’ll admit. There are a few main differences, however. Mainly, if it came down to it, I would win in a fight. I have at least 20 pounds and a few inches on her. Worse case scenario, I just sit on her. Here are the other differences.
1. My character in my French fantasy is also a skilled cabaret performer. She sings and dances her way through people’s hearts.
2. My character is also closely linked with organized crime. It is a life that she has tried to escape, but is constantly pulled back in by family obligation. She carries a gun at all times.
3. I was never in The DaVinci Code and have never touched Tom Hanks when he had that weird hair. To be completely honest, I have never touched Tom Hanks at all.

This whole French fantasy generally ends when I leave my room, only to be replaced by others. For example, when I go for a run, I often pretend that most of the human population has been infected by a rage virus (caused when some animal rights activists unwittingly freed an infected chimp) and I have to run away to save my own life. In the chase, I fall in with a group of British military men, only to realize that mankind is the real enemy. The differences between this scenario and the film 28 Days Later are, odd enough, the same as the differences between Amélie and my French scenario (see 1-3, above).

Yours,
Le Pop Quiz Kid