Today while I was waiting for my laundry at the laundromat, a seemingly well-composed homeless woman cornered me, and managed to talk to me for ten minutes about her experiences in Florida and the dancing abilities of her favorite celebrities before I could really get away.
Before she showed up the morning had already been reminding me of France, because after I started the laundry machine it turned out the door hadn't been shut properly or was broken, and water starting shooting out. The only people around were two sweet Mexican women, and when "Excuse me - sorry to bother you but do either of you know if these machines have a stop button?" was met with blank stares I said "Stop!" and pointed to the spectacle that was my washing machine. They didn't know what to do either, but we all ran around yelling "STOP!" and banging on the machine, and surprisingly that worked.
Since the only language barrier in France was articulating really complex emotions and cultural things, the inability to talk communicate with anyone in the laundromat seemed even more French than France did. It was the France that could have been.
Anyway, once this homeless woman started chatting me up, I was happy at first, because it reminded me of the thousands of people in Marseille that would randomly come up to me and just want to talk for hours. No matter where you were, you could always count on having a five-minute conversation with a stranger. But there were two depressing differences.
1. This woman clearly had a drug problem.
2. She never stopped for breath. People in Marseille are chatty, but they aren't talking about themselves. They want to know how you're doing. "What's your name? What are you studying? You have beautiful hair, you look Italian. Have you been to Italy? You should go. Where have you been? Tell me all about it!"
Nice try Los Angeles. But Marseille's crazy people have so much more heart than yours do.
After I had finally shaken her, I got excited because I know the Spanish word for "crazy" and I thought I could show it off to my new laundromat friends. But I couldn't find them. Mama Mia! My Spanish has a long way to go.
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