The Ripcord

The French Blonde, it has been noted, is complicated and contradictory. Obviously, from the FB's point of view, this all makes sense, but then it has to, because consider the alternative.

So, one of the ways in which the FB is contradictory is that she tends to flee from the things she wants. The FB, in theory, would like nothing better than to have a lovely man in her life. Through some miracle of timing and happenstance, the FB has exactly that. And now she wants to pull the ripcord and bail. Not for nothing is the FB's favorite cartoon character Penelope Pussycat:


Penelope Pussycat

"Touche and Go," Warner Bros.



The FB has spent enough time in therapy to know that at least part (okay, okay, A LOT) of this is about her own fear of intimacy, but another part of it is a tiny, insistent, LOUD voice, which is squawking in a panic about the fact that this is all happening WAY faster than the FB had anticipated. The HHCP, as previously referred to, who shall now be known as HD (shorter, more accurate) is sweet, affectionate, playful, smart, attentive, thoughtful, romantic...and he just may be the death of her.

What is the FB to do? At some point, managing her own anxiety will become a full-time job that it will be impossible to disguise. And please know that the FB is very much aware of what a pain in the ass she is; that said, being aware of it and being able to change it are two different things.

Right now, she is taking great solace from a book her friend E gave her: Enough About Love, by Herve Le Tellier. This quotation struck her last night:


"Of course Yves is already at the cafe, he is reading the paper, in no rush. Anna hates being waited for impatiently, she hates being a prisoner to someone else's attachment. She wants something that does not exist: a lover who adores her, but is utterly indifferent."

Man and Woman with Bridge, John Baldessari. 1984.