Woo-hoo!!! On Tuesday I got to have lunch with a real live celebrity exmo!!! It's always a big deal here on "Letters from a broad..." when someone from the Internet exmormon community comes here to France to visit me because it happens essentially never.
The only other celebrity exmo who has ever come here in person was Kristen Gilbert (who visited last Summer). But even though she's a nurse, she turned out not to be the serial killer Kristen Gilbert, but was in fact an entirely different nurse Kristen Gilbert. That realization made her visit a little less spectacular from a "celebrity visit" point of view, but on the upside she didn't kill any of us. And as many of you recall, she brought me an amusing sex toy, but that's a different story...
Tuesday's visit was from musician/songwriter Rudi Cazeaux!!!
Rudi is kind of exceptional in the exmo community because he's French by birth (although he doesn't live in France anymore). He's not the only one of course, but you have have to admit that French exmos are a tad less common than, say, exmos from Utah. In fact, Rudi was born and raised here in Bordeaux!!!
Since he's from Bordeaux and he served a mission for the LDS church, naturally -- back when he first left a comment on my blog mentioning where he was from -- I couldn't help but ask him for feedback on part VIII ("Bordeaux Mission") of my novel Exmormon.
He replied with a bunch of good comments and suggestions, including: "It was like listening to my own thoughts when I was on a mission" and "What I didn't expect was the poignancy of the ending, the self-doubts, the thoughts during the interview and the meal. You have managed to capture the mixture of certainty and self-doubt that most missionaries go through. You've also captured the male psyche/inner thoughts frighteningly well. The last chapters with the lines of poetry were particularly beautiful and touching."
Now if you know anything about me, you know that nothing makes me happier than when people like my little stories and relate to the characters, so basically Rudi was my best friend in the universe before I ever even met him.
The picture I've posted is unfortunately the only picture I have of me with Rudi (taken by the waiter at the restaurant where we went to lunch). I say unfortunately because even though Rudi looks adorable, I look like crap (which is what really counts -- this is my blog after all dangit!), which is why I made the photo super, extra small. In hopes that it would be very difficult for you to see it.
Rudi is a charming guy, and great conversation. I highly recommend his CD, which you can listen to by following the link above. It turns out that the title track is a Christmas song (apparently he does a fair amount of music work in conjunction with his new church). Of course I love Christmas music -- as I mentioned here, I have an elaborate collection of it, and I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it from me in the future. It's perhaps bad news for my husband (who barely tolerates my Christmas music collection) but hey, I didn't seek it out, it's found music, so he can't complain. ;-)
Thanks Rudi for your visit!!! It was great meeting you, and I hope to see you again!!!
6 comments:
Hi Rudi!!!
And cl.. you don't look that scary, just a little uncomfortable. :-)
Yeah, but the thing is that I wasn't uncomfortable. That's just a really bad angle for me (mental note for future pictures...), plus I had a strange expression for some reason, and one of these days I should really start wearing make-up...
You gotta admit -- some men really LOOOOOK good. drooling
And one day you will look at those pictures and wonder why you thought they looked bad... yep I am there.
It was great to have a "mini-exmo" get together (i.e "exmo: the Bordeaux chapter").
The weather was warm, the food was excellent, and cl is _extremely_ good company.
Some people come across really well on the web or via email, but are sometime a bit more reserved or timid in real-life... this is definitely NOT the case with cl. She is as witty, interesting and bright in person as she is online.
As soon as we started chatting time seemed to fly by at a rate of knots.
It was very interesting to meet someone who:
a) is an exmo in Bordeaux
b) has both an insider / outsider perspective
c) is such good company
We talked about France, the church, missionaries, families, public transport, temples, work, wine, travel and lots more.
The short time we had together went by really quickly.
It was also great to sample the relaxed pace of life of S.W France once again and to simply enjoy a nice meal and conversation.
BTW, I had no idea that cl liked or collected Christmas songs - so it was a very happy coincidence that I have written one (my apologies to her hubby for adding to the collection!!!!).
I hope that maybe we can manage another meeting next year (and maybe have a few more Bordeaux exmos along).
Rudi
Thanks Rudi!!!
That would be great to organize a larger French exmo gathering sometime!!!! :D
Rudi is hawt.
That is all.
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