Greetings

When people haven't seen each other for a while, they usually ask "what's up?" if they're from Crenshaw mafia, "how do you do?" if they're from 19th century England, "how have you been?" if they're from 19th century England but don't want to face it, or simply "what have you been up to?" if they're just normal.

The problem is that in 90% of the cases, the answer will be "Well, nothing special" or "I'm fine", which is pure bore and a waste of words. Hence the following question: how to turn greetings into something utterly informative? The answer is: by changing the initial question, and moving from "what have you been up to?" to "what have you not been up to?"

To illustrate this, here is an example of a chat between two friends starting with this latter line. It's been recorded by CCTV in the London Tube, at Picadilly Station the 15/10/2008. I got the tape by asking my brother to screw a female employee of the company.

"Oh, Hello, Travis. It's been a while. What have you not been up to?
- Well, Ted, I haven't banged your wife, for a start. I could have the other evening when I met her in a pub, but I didn't. What about you?
- Well, I haven't learnt about that. So I haven't smashed your face with a baseball bat and I haven't stamped my feet on your 45£ suit. Anything else?
- I didn't find another job, I didn't fly to Sri Lanka and I didn't change my mind about never going there. I also haven't bought myself a new car because I haven't got the money to do so. I haven't tried to rob your apartment because I knew I couldn't find a way to unlock your door.
- Couldn't you? That's a shame. I haven't thought about that at all. Besides, I haven't learnt to use correctly the preterit and the perfect tense, which is okay because Sandra hasn't told me anything about that. She hasn't told me anything at all the last three months, when I think about it.
- Well, Ted, I've been glad to see you. I hope we'll find more time soon to catch up.
- All right then, Travis. So long."

A bit more lively, ain't it? Now, you know exactly what to do the next time you meet someone you really don't like but with whom you still want to be polite.

There's something about Laurence

I like Laurence. She's my friend. She's really really nice but above all, she's open-minded. She never judges anybody, or anything, unless she's dead sure the judgment is safe, and that's if 98.7% of the world population said it was. To make it short, she's the opposite of a snobbish person.

Sometimes on saturday afternoon we take a walk in the Montsouris public park. She holds my harm, I let her do so and I point my finger here and there at some nightingale singing in a tree. She finds it cute. And so the two of us walk and talk about things.

"Sandra took me to this rap concert, I say. I don't like rap all right. But this band really sucked."
"You can't say that, she replies. I'm sure people in the audience liked it, plus I think that every form of art deserves credit."

We get by the river and linger on the bridge. I look at her and say: "Michel's been nasty to Elise. He cheats on her every friday night. And he beats her up as well."
She gives a yawn and answers: "People shouldn't be too harsh on him. He must have some personal problems and that's the reason why he does that. We never really know what's going on behind the doors, do we?"

We lay for a while on the grass. Children play football around us. Shady ideas cross my mind. "I wonder whether islamist terrorists are real muslims, cos' if it's so, that's really scary." She gives me one of her funny looks and says: "We should read the Coran. Maybe we would understand better about them."

We reach the exit gate and step in the avenue. "I can't understand a god damned thing about modern art. It's like this Pierre Soulages guy. 200 paintings colored in black and white. No shapes. No variation. Can you imagine that?"
"Come on, Pierre, she replies. How many modern art exhibitions have you been to? It takes time to appreciate it."

We beg eachother goodbye in front of the bus stop. We get along so fine it's a mistery we never kissed. I add a final word: "By the way I changed my window shades. You know, the orange ones. I replaced them with blue ones." She stares at me angrily and says: "How could you possibly do that? It doesn't suit your apartment at all. Blue goes with white, don't you know that?"

I didn't know that, no. But I know there is something about Laurence...