Home Improvement or The Handy Nature of Our Sex

Don Julio stood at the stove, cooking something up for my eating pleasure, and I sat staring into space, thinking about French verb forms. I repositioned my gaze from time to time, my eyeballs finally settling on a corner where two different colored walls met.

‘Did you, uh…Did you paint the walls yourself?’ I called to Don Julio.

‘Yes, I did!’ he turned and flashed me a proud smile.

Yeah…I could tell. At each corner, the lines of paint became rough and undefined, often with the white of the primer underneath serving as a messy border between two colors. As my gaze drifted upward, I realized the edge along the ceiling was even worse, and most of the walls were too heavy with uneven strokes of paint.

Don Julio came over to the couch and started talking about how terrible the colors were when he moved in, and how delighted he was with the walls now. I smiled, but I wanted to scream at him ‘Have ya heard of painters’ tape? I mean, REALLY?!’

I’m getting the sense that French dudes are not particularly handy. It must be why they’re so obsessed with cowboys and Al Pacino (though in all fairness, I think all men hero worship Pacino at least a little bit). Having been at the center of cultivated life for centuries, that sort of rugged machismo is utterly alien to a Frenchman. They saunter around their villages, smoking their cigarettes with graceful swoops of their hands, conscientiously aiming their ash away from their designer shoes and their expertly wound knit scarves. John Wayne would have a freaking field day.

The first day I hung out with Don Julio after he kissed me, we went shopping. Yeah. That’s right. He perused jeans and jackets in a purportedly American styled boutique, asking me intermittently for my opinion, while I stood around awkwardly wondering why he thought I gave a crap about coats that looked exactly the same as the one he had on. (He almost exclusively wears that brand he showed me the first day, and I have since started to make fun of him for it. Frequently) We took a tour of some other shops, and with a small cry of interest, he pressed his hands against my shoulders and literally steered me into Sephora. I wondered silently how he had so artfully constructed a complete tour of my personal hell (I loved our time there together Kiki, but I am sorely out of my depth). He starting sniffing samples of cologne, and handing me one, asked me what kinds of perfumes I like. I managed to avoid yelling ‘what kind of man are you?!’ and instead answered truthfully that I personally didn’t wear much by way of beauty products. ‘I noticed that,’ he smiled, ‘I like that.’

Do you? Do you, fancy pants? Huh, you goddamn closet metro-sexual? Here I thought with the stubble and the lip piercing you'd be a normal dude...Of course, the Frenchman is a specialized breed of man. This statement allows me to rationalize my spending twenty minutes smelling various colognes and discussing the range of citrus and berry notes. (My barista training at Starbucks certainly came in handy. Thank you, corporate devil!) Essentially, what the savage American male would do in private shame, the Frenchman understands as a necessary part of cultivated life. These euro dudes fuss with their hair as much as any woman, profess their opinions on the cut of clothing even more readily than a certain persnickety Johnnie in the wilds of Senegal, and remain steadfast and shameless in their preference for light beers. They seem to think merely drinking beer in large mugs makes them paradigms of masculinity. Bitches, all of 'em. Don Julio at least knows how to pour a beer, but I’ve seen a few posturing fellows accumulate an unacceptable amount of fluffy white atop their mugs. I wanted to hit them, and then take their beers away. Undeserving schmucks.

The sensitivity evident in French fellows is jarring at first, but I suppose that’s also what enables them to be attentive lovers, or spontaneously romantic in a fashion most American men have yet master. This doesn’t mean that they stop being bullheaded. Don Julio certainly doesn’t ask for directions, even in a grocery store. Nor does it occur to him to look up directions on how to fix things, rather than just tinkering with something in the same useless manner for half an hour. (I bet you can guess which of the two of us figured out how to get the record player working.) I talked to Marion about this last night, and she believes that French women in general tend to be handier about machines and home improvements than their male counterparts. I don't doubt it. Those men probably have no idea they're so awful at their projects, either. Remember, ladies, when Nate and Dan attempted to build a fire January of senior year? Remember how they left briefly to get congratulatory beers, and the girl scouts came in and attacked that smoking mess? We all really enjoyed that fire, and they drank their beers, none the wiser. And peace reigned on Earth.

I can’t speak beyond that to the capabilities of French women or even other American women, but I would say I’m personally adept at home improvement projects. When my parents renovated our house, I ended up spending nearly every weekend of my sixth grade year painting, spackling, tearing up floors, removing siding, and cleaning away the mountains of moldering sheetrock and debris my father ripped from the walls. I explained this to Don Julio, with the feeble hope that he might sense my malaise about his crap paint job:
‘Yeah, so I’m pretty good with stuff like that.’
‘Oh really?’ he chuckled, ‘Because I have some projects around the apartment…’
‘YES. Yeah, totally, I would love to help!’ I said, with a touch too much alacrity.
He shot me a puzzled look.‘Um…I’m kidding…’
‘Oh, right. Of course. Right.’

God help me, I don’t know what I’m going to do once he starts putting the molding up.