Male

you know, much to my surprise and, more to the point, in stark
contrast to the warnings of past travelers to paris, i haven't had any
trouble getting directions here...and snide remarks/expressions have
been the exception, not the rule. ...but perhaps i'm meeting all the
wrong people.

------------------------------
---------

why can i get a tub of soft cheese to block a water main while yogurt
comes only in baby food sizes?

-------------------------------------------

where are all the flags? i thought the french were supposed to be a
deeply nationalistic people that bob ney couldn't've offended any more
than by changing the name of his favorite snack, "french fries."
[playful eyeroll]

----------------------------------------------

something about the standing pose at a parisian bar speaks to a
sophisticated exhaustion. it's quite amusing to see people of all
manner of dress doing it. men and women. ' first time i saw it i
looked for someone pushing a mop, as i swore the stools must've been
moved for someone to clean the floor.

----------------------------------------------

i'm torn.

this trip was supposed to be only about hanging out with a dear friend
in a magical city for a couple weeks.

...but, from the time i started reading the guidebook on the plane,
i've been entertaining notions of sticking around a little longer. a
few months probably. enough time to learn the language.

honestly, it's not that i'm in love with paris. it's yet to surpass
expectations and--dare i say?--barely met them.

...but a third colonial language might hold too much sway. ' a trip
to morocco might be easier, for instance.

...and, well, it'd be nice to discover this country with vianney, who,
after living in north america from the ages of 5 to 21, has been doing
his own acquainting of sorts the last three years.

his exploration's near to my heart and, in turn, at the heart of why i'm torn.

my heart's not here, as it were.

i want to discover spain....and connect with people there, with whom i
share a great deal of cultural heritage.

i was walking down a backstreet in the saint germain district of paris
last night when i happened upon a catalonian cultural center. though
i realize there's a strong autonomy movement in the region, i was
nonetheless tickled by notions of kentucky having a similar
establishment in india. as i framed a shot through my camera's
viewfinder, a group of tourists posed before the building for their
own photo. lucky for them i was charmed by the spanish i could hear
them speaking.

' turns out they were catalonian. and, of course, warm and friendly.

...which is consistent with sentiments expressed by two flanking
barmates the previous night, one of french heritage and
spanish-raised, the other french having lived in spain as an adult.
the two men bonded over their longing for spanish warmth of spirit,
trading examples of how cold the french can be in contrast.

so much of my life is devoted to the pursuit of warmth. voluntarily
spending a few months here knowing there's so much more across the
pyrenees could be quite the commitment to this language thing.

...but at least i'd be able to order thirty different kinds of liver pate.

----------------------------------------------

humbling moments are fun.

my palate's notoriously adventurous.

vianney and i were really looking forward to that andouillette--you
know, pig stomach and colon, which, naturally, bears the properties
that make feces smell and, presumably, taste the way it does.

two days after we each could stand only a nibble, i am minutes away
from taking a bribe of 20 euros to eat the rest.

this should serve as explanation if there's an interruption in journal entries.

----------------------------------------------

another programming note:
oh, dear, i just realized that the grammatically contractionless prose
i've become accustomed to typing to non-native english speakers the
last ten days is bleeding into my blog. i apologize for any such
deviations in style.

----------------------------------------------

few people want their picture taken (or one taken of anything they
own/tend) in this country.

' just learned one reason.

some scoundrels are photographing antiques, posting the pictures on
eBay with a minimum price, and, when that minimum is met, buying the
item for less at boutiques to turn a profit.

surely that's why i wanted to photograph the art deco lamp i saw yesterday.

-------------------------------------------

on the subject of prices, it's refreshing to find myself in a place
where a 49€ item isn't, without fail, listed as 48€99.

-------------------------------------------

' lots of antique spoons at the flea market.

i'd make a point of having more soup, if they weren't 85 euros a dozen.

--------------------------------------------

WWOOF. goats. france.

this might be another reason to stick around now.

-------------------------------------------

the blend of cultures in the lower socioeconomic strata here's really
interesting. whereas there's a great deal of blend in the
latin-american and black communities in the u.s., you have arabs and
africans together here, their aesthetic nonetheless tinged with
u.s.-urban as evidenced by the run DMC blaring in the flea market.

------------------------------------------

things have gone from humbling to pathetic.

it's been twelve hours since vianney got abdominal cramps from
watching me suffer through two andouillettes, and, brushing my teeth
just now, i could still smell it.

-----------------------------------------

i love that vianney's neighbors are so annoyed with the fact his
garbage has been sitting outside the door to his apartment for two
days. (note: i would take it out, but i don't have the key to the
courtyard.) he says they need to back off, especially after, for a
time, every night as he came home from work, he had to stumble past
the smelly rabbit his neighbor would curiously set outside her door.

-------------------------------------------------

' got a glimpse last night of arab culture in an economically
developed country. ' went with a tunisian friend to a moroccan bar in
a middle-eastern neighborhood. ' bizarre milieu after witnessing the
degree of social conservatism i did in what was supposed to be a tres
open environment in cairo this summer.

.....and that was before the guy set a cake on his head and wiggled
his hips like footage of him riding a unicycle had been
fast-forwarded.

after he and i enjoyed something of a reggaeton dance-off, i'm
expected back at the club tonight.

-------------------------------------------------

so, i've dabbled in this couchsurfing phenomenon. ' met a very cool
person last night, who, after a few hours of advising me on paris as i
mulled skipping my return flight thirty hours before it was set to
depart, shows me the book she happened to've written: "When in Paris,
Live Like a Local."

--------------------------------------------------

having the curse-blessing that is my computer in tow, i've gotten deep
into video-conferencing, much to the joy of my cousin lucy.

i've mentioned lucy in an earlier entry, if not by name. she's one of
my cousins in cuba, except, well, she's in the middle east right now.
see, she's been out of the country exactly twice, to qatar and now abu
dhabi, both times as a musician on government contracts with tourist
hotels. she's really into the cam chat also, as she's been away from
her two young daughters for a year now and has another six months to
go.

she says one of the hobbies she's developed holed up in a resort hotel
room is researching countries of the world, though her government
prohibits her from visiting any of them for reasons unrelated to its
own public relations and revenue.

--------------------------------------------------

so, i'm staying. it very gradually dawned on me that i had to stay in
france now.

i need french goats.

i need to pick grapes at a vineyard.

i want to learn this language.

.........but, now, i'm at a crisis of conscience. i want to work on
an organic goat farm, right? check.

...but i'm going to look for a job as a bartender. how do i explain
serving acid-forming, liver-corroding spirits to young anglophones?

well, life's complicated......and i need a job.

...and most things are ok in moderation (though, admittedly, some are
better in excess).

it's only when the inebriated co-ed comes asking for another shot of
jack that the disappointment in the eyes of the haloed kid (baby goat)
on my shoulder's going to be hard to resist.

---------------------------------------------------

' found some dancing with vianney and his friends last night. ....and
it's a good thing i did, as i'm still, as a friend of mine so
colorfully puts it, "the retarded person in the room" with respect to
my conversational skills and lack of french.

....but, yeah, dancing is a common denominator and, for now, about my
only way to "win [french] friends and influence [french] people."
[grin]

at one point last night, i bent down to tie a woman's shoe on the
dance floor. she wanted to thank me with what i thought was "biz"
(the typical set of kisses on both cheeks), but when i gave her my
left cheek, she'd have none of it. she wanted to kiss my mouth.

so, yes, last night i had my first parisian all-eyes-on-us pop kiss
with a stranger.

------------------------------------------------------

the french punk scene is alive and well.

' visited last night a punk bar in a neighboring Metro-accessible city
called Montreuill. of course, this place couldn't be just a bar.
it's also a tabac (think lottery tickets and chewing gum), brasserie
(restaurant), outdoor saucisse (sausage) and chicken leg barbecue
venue, and, well, petanque (aka bocce ball) arena.

three bands played for the five euro cover and the mohawks were in full effect.

' got there by way of a couchsurfer. i've gotten deep into this
website of mostly good-natured folk with a zest for travel,
hospitality, and community-building. it's been a really easy to meet
both native parisians and transplants (both expats and french
natives). ' wonder whether my experience in new york would've been
different had i tapped it.

--------------------------------------------------------

' think i found a new angle for the job hunt. houndstooth pants.

see, it seems i'm going to have trouble finding a job as a
"sans-papiers" (undocumented worker).

i'm hoping, though, that i'll walk through the door in my gray/blue
semi-flares and someone will say, "we need that guy on our staff."

on verra.

------------------------------------------------------

i talked to my niece today. via instant messenger. i wasn't trying
to be rude, but i was conversing with both her and my cousin from
cuba.

my cousin, who grew up with my grandfather and speaks spanish and
little english, told me, who saw my grandfather thrice in my life for
a week or two at a time and who's fluent in both english and spanish,
that my ninety-five-year-old grandfather had died, and i relayed the
sobering news to my


follow me on this.

three players, one sequence.


my cousin
born in '71
grew up under the guidance of my grandfather in cuba
speaks spanish and little english
living in the united arab emirates

<<tells>>

me
born in '81
grew up in the u.s. and saw my grandfather thrice in my life
speak english and spanish
living in france

<<asks me how i'm doing, all things considered. i then go on to learn
my grandfather died the previous day.............and i relay that news
to>>

my niece
born in '91
grew up in the u.s. having never met her great-grandfather
speaks english and little spanish
living in florida

i guess it shouldn't come as such as a surprise that they couldn't
manage to download the same messenger (my cousin on yahoo and my niece
on AIM) to actually speak with each other.

---------------------------------------------------

my gracilis muscles're a little sore this morning. i take heart in
the fact that they're not aching after my first real horseback-riding
experience yesterday in nucourt, france, at the invitation of a
parisian.

by "real," i mean that i was on a horse in cuba for about one minute
when i was 14.

---------------------------------------------------

people think i'm an idiot.

seriously.

american = idiot.

there's this presupposition i don't know anything about food, for instance.

i see a little bit of the arrogance (disdain?) others've reported,
even if it doesn't help that my french is still minimal.

--------------------------------------------------------

' got a glimpse last night into the world of children's television
programming in france.

a writer friend shared a couple of rules she has trouble abiding by.

characters are not to, for example, play with their food. food
politics are important, so that one i can understand.

...but is tetanus really such a danger in france that cartoon
characters are not to walk around barefoot? [scratches his head
quizzically]

--------------------------------------------------------

in the latest episode of "idiot in the room," i sat in on a symposium
on women in wartime at la sorbonne. in french.

' was there at the invitation of an acquaintance who very graciously
passed notes in green, red, and blue ink (note: no rhyme or reason).

the main building of la sorbonne is kind-a awesome, what with its
murals and crazy wooden auditorium seats. no less quaint is the lack
of wi-fi, even for its students.

---------------------------------------

merguez. onion. mushroom. olive oil. salt.

i love it when ingredients make me look like i can cook.

vianney and i just made our first foray into the two kilos of the
aforementioned red north african sausage i bought this morning at the
barbes market in paris.

------------------------------------------

you know, over the last few days i've been leaning further and further
away from staying in paris the projected 4-6 months, though i still
plan to spend another 6-7 weeks in non-paris france.

one reason for staying here's the language, but, the more thought i
give pouring myself into learning this language the more i realize
that, well:

a. there're few places in the world where i'll do better with french
than i will with english or spanish.

b. in that vein, i can try to acquire a language that will help me
when i'm 45, say, chinese.

c. i don't have to stick around here 'til august to have fun on a
vineyard; i can do the same in tuscany.

d. my interest in spending time with goats is unwavering.

--------------------------------------------

visits to Monoprix, the local grocery store, must be as stressful for
other people as they are for me. i can't be the only one whose heart
races when, while checking out, i scramble to bag my groceries in the
tiny little space designated for scanned items as i fumble my wallet
to pay and try to get the hell out of the way as the cashier idly
looks on, for bagging isn't part of her/is job description.

----------------------------------------------

clearly, we need more football (soccer) pitches in paris.

last night, ' dude climbed down to the Metro tracks for a plastic
bottle which he proceeded to use for a ball. the gentleman was an
all-purpose sort, serving as his own cheering section and bellowing
mascot.

---------------------------------------------

i tend to ask questions as i think of them, but, every now 'n' then, i
walk away from a situation wishing i'd remembered to ask
who/what/where/when/what/how.

last night, while i was watching a little fire poi at place de notre
dame, in front of the catedral of the same name, a couple of guys came
up asking for condoms for "a game."

interested in fostering a certain dynamism in paris, i pulled one out
of my backpack and handed it over, forgetting to ask pertinent
questions.

--------------------------------------------

roast halal chicken provencal.

three of them. check. check. check.

-----------------------------------------------------

raj is back.

my friend raj visited vianney and me for three days, and he was on his
way back to new york today when his train was delayed, by a suicide on
the tracks.

------------------------------------------------------

i think learning french'd constitute an investment of time i'm not
willing to make for something of as little utility to me in the long
run.

yes, i know. to some this is going to sound really ignorant or
anti-intellectual...........but, well, where, other than france, is
french going to be useful to me in ways that english and spanish
aren't?

morocco.

algeria.

tunisia.

mali.

senegal.

the list doesn't extend much further.

if i were on my way to north or west africa now, i would be all over
this language...but i'm not. there're many stops and a couple to a
few years b/w france and the aforementioned.

when i finally reach bamako, i'm unlikely to've retained much of the
french that i'd acquire from scratch in what's likely to be no more
than five months here.

learning a language is certainly an appealing challenge, but, well, we
have to make choices.

i'm leaning toward chinese down the line and tackling other challenges now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

so, teaching english hasn't been as fruitful as i'd hoped, at least
not early on.

i've been posting online for weeks and, between clients postponing and
flaking out, i've seen two.

one of those was supposed to come for 90 minutes, and he ended up
staying for two and a half hours, which was encouraging, as i was a
little apprehensive because of my lack of french.

all the more encouraging was the kid i saw yesterday evening.

i was posting tear-off-tab flyers around town and asking business to
let me tape them on their walls, when a lebanese greasy spoon owner
got me to see his kid at a paltry rate because i really needed the
work. i ended up going into this tiny restaurant a couple days later
to see rayan, who spoke less english and spanish (combined) than i do
french.

rayan ended up working with me for an extra half hour.

so, it's gone well with those i've seen; i just haven't had many materialize.

---------------------------------------------------------------

happened upon a great little bar while flyering yesterday.

it's actually a big bar, with a grand beige and lime formica counter.

.....and, behind this counter, a tiny, hunchbacked, trembling
(parkinson's) lady slicing the fifth inch-long wedge of cheese for a
cheese platter ordered by a dozen college kids out on a wednesday
afternoon break. i stood alone behind the counter for about five
minutes, watching her execute slices that, were they for any substance
other than cheese, would've been jagged.

after arranging the wedges and the bread slices that took her just as
long to saw, she finally looked up and gave me a chance to ask whether
i could post the flyer.

not missing a beat, she scuffed over to the register for some scotch tape.

distributing flyers could prove to be a new way to get acquainted with
this city.

---------------------------------------------------------

so, i found my new favorite book in the garbage the other morning.
"Notre Terre" ("Our land") has wonderful color pictures of nurses,
sheep, coal miners--all labelled contextually for the four-year-old in
each of our lives.........which is to say it's written at just my
level.

i now know how to say "oil refinery" in francais. (i lie; i don't,
but at least i now know i have a book that would tell me how to say
oil refinery in polychrome.)

---------------------------------------------------------

tuna seems to be a popular ingredient on pizzas here. ' was treated
to tuna and reblochon (an alpine cheese) pizza--or, well, a glorified
(and, actually, quite glorious) tuna melt.

----------------------------------------------------------

five-story monotony got a little less claustrophobic yesterday.

' hung out on a mostly arab/african stretch of rue (street) st. denis
yesterday afternoon and recognized that there could be plenty of
flavor even with the backdrop of these buildings that've made this
city seem so sterile over the two months.

' suppose it doesn't hurt that down this street there're
45-55-year-old sex workers, in all their stockinged and corseted
glory, scattered in doorways for blocks.

my french needs to improve if i'm going to get anywhere with them.

------------------------------------------------------------

so, in my attempts to contrive the quintessential parisian existence,
i'm making good on my vow to learn the bicycle. yes, the bicycle.
yes, i'm 26.

i practiced a bit a couple days ago in the gardens of the palais royal
and, when counting my pre-roost chickens and reading about cycling in
paris, learned that le comte de sivrac (the count of sivrac) had
introduced the first bicycle in the very same garden where i dodged
moving trees.

....except the there was no comte de sivrac, anywhere but in the
imagination of some historian who couldn't bear to give the rival
germans (and karl drais, in particular) their due credit for inventing
the bike--or at least its precursor.

....but all that's old news. today i rode around the pyramid at the
louvre and, remarkably, after another day of practice, tourists were
slower than yesterday's trees.

---------------------------------------------------------------

my (maternal) grandfather just asked me how many french women i've had
(in 1950's rural cuban slang: "¿cuantas francesas te has templado?)
mind you, he and i've never discussed such matters.

(in an unrelated story, my grandmother insists on sleeping in a
different room because, she says, he doesn't let her sleep.)

----------------------------------------------------------------

' good thing i'm working illegally and won't be taking any drug tests.

i'm slowly spooning 600g of turkish poppy seed paste, something i
never saw in a month exploring foodie istanbul.

---------------------------------------------------------------

urine springs.

i can only presume the two twenty-something gentleman peeing into the
same corner of the bank of la seine were close friends, their amity
the wellspring from which flowed the stream of urine twelve meters
toward the river........its heavily sulfuric bouquet testifying they
weren't alone in seizing opportunity in dark-ishcorners.

---------------------------------------------------------------

i feel awful.

' stunned a guy on the sidewalk today when i gave him a casual
"bonsoir" ("good evening") and didn't proceed to ask anything of him.

after a moment's assessment, he turned around to make sure i was talking to him.

after reassuring him i meant only to greet him, it pained me to leave
him standing perplexed, motionless on the sidewalk.

----------------------------------------------------------------

many of my english students are seeing me because they aspire to work
in the U.S.

in fact, i spent this evening's 90-minute lesson with a new student
helping her write an american-style resume, which differs considerably
from a french one.

in this country, a picture and age listing are de rigueur on a resume.

most of all, though, i enjoy the irony in the fact that, while i'm
helping them gain employment in the country where i was born, no one
will hire me in theirs as a foreigner without papers that're tres
difficult to come by as an american.

---------------------------------------------------------------

i think we all have people like this in our lives, but, after two and
a half months here, i'm convinced they all have a common french
ancestor.

see, in this country, after being asked a question, my interlocutor
sees it fit to launch right into hammering away her/is rejoindering
point, whether or not s/he has a clue as to my reply. it's at once
galling and amusingly predictable.

......then, of course, there's the employer who sees it fit to remind
me that the french minimum wage is 7.20 euro/hour when she's made me
an offer that's slightly higher than that for work that's considered
skilled. this was particularly disingenuous because minimum wage is,
in effect, 9 euro/hour owing to the fact that the official minimum is
considered so low that anyone working for it gets a housing subsidy.

---------------------------------------------------------------

tomorrow's the day vianney and i will step into the offices of a
start-up parisian "design company" and help them, the american cheese
experts we are, name a cheese for the U.S. market.

apparently a tasting will be involved.

---------------------------------------------------------------

the cheese involved was of the spreadable variety.

we can take heart in the fact that it was actual cheese, not "american
cheese product" nor any other permutation of non-cheeses, though it
did contain artificial preservatives.

nonetheless, to highlight the distinction b/w the stuff in question
and most cheese spreads (namely, the use of real milk and cream), i
went with "La Creme de la Cream."

--------------------------------------------------------------

there is a god:: i found in montreuil (a suburb just east of paris) a
5 kg container of turkish yogurt (made in germany) for 6.50 euro.

------------------------------------------------------------------

' guy asks me yesterday how he can get a job collecting garbage for the city.

' suppose i'm getting some experiential mileage out of the garbage
collector's shirt i got for 3 euros in the second-hand clothing
section of the flea market.

in fact, tonight, a bar's manager rushed to confront me, concerned i
worked for city sanitation inspectors, when wearing the same sweater
and photographing lounging parisians.

------------------------------------------------------------------

"j'ais perdu ma culotte."

the woman i hear yelling on the street's just lost her panties.

i love living across from a swinger's club.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

it was no duchamp, but the first piece i saw in the louvre was the
urinal i raced toward when i stopped in to the use the bathroom while
in the neighborhood.

i'm sure i'll make it back for the rest of the art someday.

ok, some of the rest. they say that, if you spent 30 seconds looking
at each piece on display in the museum, you'd be there three months.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

the guy trying to sell me flowers last night spoke decent english.

' said he spoke five languages and was a teacher in baghdad before
paying 10,000 euros to be smuggled into france. he sleeps on the
street to save up 1500 more euros for the trip to oslo, where he says
conditions are better for the undocumented.

------------------------------------------------------------------

so, my reflective parisian-garbage-collector shirt is getting me all
kinds of attention at cafes. last night, the busboy equivalent,
catching sight of me photographing patrons, approached me with a stiff
upper lip and crossed arms, asking what the problem was. i tried to
fumble through the fact that i take photographs for leisure (not
mentioning that i'd love to be paid for it). finally, the waiter
intervenes and i learn they all thought i was a neon-green city
inspector.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

quite the juxtaposition of alternative forms of futility on display at
place de la bastille today. you had hundreds of tentative-to-flailing
strides you could, with a little squinting, make out as a
rollerblading class, and, just on the other side of the two classic
parisian lamposts doing their best to hold buckingham-palace still,
you had a group of pubescent boys making the most of their saturday
afternoon by leaping in the air to most effectively batter their
skateboards.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

i think i inadvertently turned a parisian institution on its head today.

at about 14h (2:00 p.m.), i stepped into a large grocery store in east
paris and found gold--a 180g log of goat cheese for 1.15 euro that i
proceeded to eat like a candy bar the rest of my walk.

in the evening, having mostly resisted the baguette craze through my
time in paris, i decided i'd give it a go. did i ever.

i trust the goat cheese and baguette commingled in my stomach to make
a glorious sandwich.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

if you need to duck into a bar to use the bathroom on your 45-minute
uphill hike from la seine to montmartre, don't let rue frochot be the
tiny street you choose unless you have a spare hour and a condom.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

if you're listening to your iPod on the Metro and hear the voices of a
group of fair-complexioned riders over your music, you don't have to
turn the music down to understand what language they're speaking:
they're american.

....and i don't think that's such a bad thing (if only because cubans
are even louder).

----------------------------------------------------------------------

i love that the menacing motorcycle guy i passed on my velib (public
bicycle; i can explain later) last night was carrying delivery for
Planet Sushi.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

' suppose i can pass for french, after all.

' was velibing at about 5h (5:00 a.m.) when my fake-blonde friend was
whipped with a belt by a guy standing idle with a few buddies as she
passed on her bike. when i confronted him, he wanted to know why i
was yelling in english, as i was clearly french, as evidenced by my
garbage-collector's shirt.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

i suppose there is a lot of dog shit here.

...and the pigeons don't lag too far behind if what i felt on my head
during an english lesson in the park yesterday evening was any
indication.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

i'm by no measure an expert on french food yet, as my budget dictates
i self-cater 'til someone forces me to sit in their dining room and
eat their food.

.....but i do feel three and a half months into my stay is a decent
time to take inventory of my favorites thus far.

saint-marcellin - a soft cow's milk cheese
croissant aux amandes - a dessert made of days-old croissants
confiture de châtaignes - chestnut spread
macarons, of course - not the "macaroons" found in the U.S. (those
veritable coconut wonders are known as "congolais" here), but,
instead, a colorful almond-based cookie sandwich with a heavenly cream
filling

----------------------------------------------------------------------

i don't take this for gospel, but i'm sensing a pattern.

i feel like, among the europeans, mostly french, with whom i've
interacted on this paris sojourn, when i kvetch, there's less of a
tendency to say empathize and give a, "wow, that's awful." and and
more to say something along the lines of, "that's life."

whether my experience should suggest a wider pattern or not, it's made
me question what i should expect from someone listening to a problem
of mine. is acknowledgement/validation of misfortune helpful or
should i simply want to be reminded of the randomness of misfortune
and the fact i can do little about it and should just move on?

it's funny to have vianney around all the time because, fluent as he
is and seemless as his transition is in interacting with the french,
interacting with him has been a different animal from interacting with
most others around here. i don't think it's just because we're so
close. i find he's much more likely to hear me out if i have a
problem and to try to understand than to just summarily chalk it up
to, "c'est la vie."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

' more fun french stuff sans requisite language skills.

' stumbled upon unobstructed-view tickets to La Comedie Francaise (the
French national theater) at obstructed-view prices (5 euros).

the orientation of seats at the sides of each gallery was a little
curious, as you had to keep your neck (or more, alternating if smart)
turned the whole play.

vianney tells me the play was interesting. i trust him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

you know, this tour guide thing i'm working on is pitting me against
one of my major life obstacles, sitting down and reading/writing.

of course, there's an added dimension, which is the memorizing. i've
never acted in anything really.

i'm a little intimidated by having to largely memorize a four-hour
script and another three-hour one and reproduce both in spanish.

i feel i'll be a decent guide once i have everything down; it's the
down getting that's got me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

chicken or egg.

i've heard that the relative (as compared with neighboring germany and
northern europe) lack of english in this country is due to movies
being screened mostly in VF (version francais, or dubbed) as opposed
to VO (version originale).

--------------------------------------------------------------------

one of my students works at the louvre. so, naturally, we hold as
many of our classes there as we can.

she made a point of showing me one of the courtyards yesterday
afternoon. it was covered with a ceiling made of glass similar to
that constituting
i.m. pei's famous pyramid, but, apparently, the glass on this
ceiling's been leaking for six years. they
actually had to cover the art it under it, you know the one it was
meant to protect, mostly statues, with plastic bags.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

paris is recycling.

one of the sounds that's emerged as quintessential of the paris
experience is that of glass on glass, as in bottles being slipped
through the rubber slots of those
enormous-green-plastic-upside-down-baby-food-jar-looking things on the
street.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

you know, for a country characterized by such fierce observance of
employee protections, it's a little surprising to receive sunday
afternoon calls from english-language schools looking to hire
teachers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

you know, this may be the city of light, but it's at its most
beautiful when water is involved in some form.

the louvre certainly reigns at its most majestic when the sky behind
it looms overcast.

...and places like the jardin des tuileries are less dust-cloudy when
rain intervenes to keep tourists' heels from kicking up storms of
white haze.

---------------------------------------

i missed orhan pamuk at the shop yesterday.

(apparently, even sylvia, the owner, was too shy to say anything.)

when i say "the shop," i could just say "home." i've been living at a
bookstore for a
couple weeks in exchange for working in the shop a couple hours a day
and opening and closing it.

' doesn't sound like much, but coupled with giving tours, it's had the
effect of chopping my day up into pieces.

sundays have been particularly exciting. a typical one looks like this:

10h20 wake up
10h45 open shop at the same time i'm supposed to be on the square to
start the tour
11h run to square to start tour
15h30 finish tour and run back to give second tour
15h45 time i'm supposed to be on square for second tour
20h30 finish second tour and run back to shop to work until close
23h shop closes

-------------------------------

oh, right, of course i'm a paris tour guide three months after having
moved here.

i've been experimenting with giving "free" walking tours, meaning i
work only for the tips people give me. of course, i pay the company a
set amount no matter what i make in tips. ' sound strange? it is.

i suppose both my jobs revolve around separating fact from fiction,
though in the bookstore i tend to call "fact" "non-fiction."

--------------------------------

there's no better reminder that i'm a second-class citizen than the
Velib stations. Velib is a public bicycle service all around the
city, but i can't get on one because i don't have a Smart Card, a
credit with a computer chin on it, something every parisian gets with
his/er paris bank account.

--------------------------------

if i'm going to be pissed off, it's nice to have french people pissed
off with me, as they were when i showed up at the one of the less than
handful of grocery stores
that stays open past 22h, in this case 11h50, only to find they won't
let me in after 11h38. ...nor the the french family just behind me at 11h39.

--------------------------------

why do U.S. ATMs (cashpoints) issue only crisp bills? i just saw
someone get wrinkled bills from a paris ATM.

of course, that's not nearly as horrifying as noticing that DIEBOLD,
the company at the center of the voter fraud controversies in ohio in
2004, makes ATMs.

-----------------------------------

police officers are really in shape here.

-----------------------------------

be leery of macarons kept at room temperature.

-----------------------------------

the subway sandwich shop has 15 cm subs.

-----------------------------------

why doesn't any cashier here get it when i hand them 2.20 euro when i
owe 1.70 euro?

-----------------------------------

i suppose i'm getting a feel for the city literally.

the french affinity for park walkways covered in course white dirt has
led my shoes to wear down over the last three months of giving
tours...to the point where i can feel the walking surface on my soles.
i avoid rougher patches of ground in favor of smooth sidewalks. this
kind of intimacy can't be bought.

-----------------------------------

"When I went to Central Park, I can not imagine people will be on the
grass." --Chantal, my french student of english as we sat in the
Jardin de Luxembourg, on, well, green metal chairs in white dirt

-----------------------------------

i often feel like the average parisian, if swept up and introduced
into american society, would be the (insert "asshole," "snotty priss,"
etc) in most group dynamics.

-----------------------------------

i can't remember the phrasing of the beginning of the sentence because
it was the end that really got me, but:

"Do you think you can be a sommelier?"

...is the question i was asked by the manager of a company that does
wine tastings for anglophone tourists when i went in for an interview.

-------------------------------------------------

you know, a couple days ago, i met a girl i saw quite a bit my first
couple of months in paris.

we didn't really establish a cerebral/intellectual/emotional connection...

i could never understand why she always wanted to come see me, beyond
her explanation that there was something unusual about the way i
touched her....

...and i was too curious, as is wont to be the case, to ever decide
that i should be doing other things with my time.

she ended up leaving paris, and i didn't see her for four months.

those four months, i worked just about every day, often at both the
tours and the bookshop, sometimes an english lesson thrown in in case
i had enough time to eat lunch. i was making decent money doing
things i was good at. and eating pastries.

my first friday unemployed, i happened to walk through paris and pick
up some choucroute ("sauerkraut" to most anglophones) and some
vegetables at the ourdoor market, harking back to the food purchasing
patterns i'd largely abandoned four months earlier.

....when, of course, the sms came, telling me katharina was back in
town that day and wanted to see me.

so, i saw her.

it was fitting that we strolled through the cemetary that afternoon
because, while one could consider her continued difficult disposition
toward me as a rebirth, i think i'm going to actively choose not to
hang out with her again. ' an unusual move for me, cutting someone
off altogether.

i think the hardest part of it all was when she took me to ile st
louis, the island behind notre dame. she wanted to be there at sunset
to gaze upon the enormous spider that notre dame resembles from
behind....she didn't really care to be there with me; she just wanted
the moment.

all i could think about was how long it'd been since someone i'd
actually want to share that kind of
moment with came into my life.

-----------------------------------------------------

why is my bed in the hallway?

well, of course it's because the nut i'm sharing the guest room with
at the squat decided he needed a few more centimeters added to the 60
percent he's occupying of a three-person room. i can't blame him for
having taken my twin-sized mattress off my twin-sized bed frame and
put my frame in the hallway, a step away from the cellar.

life at an art squat.

-----------------------------------

"espoir"

new word for today. people keep repeating it on the street here.

in an unrelated story, barack obama was elected president of the united states.

-----------------------------------

you know, the last several entries are written weeks and months after
the fact because i've been separated from my computer due to insecure
living arrangements. i went from living with new strangers rolling in
every few days when i was at shakespeare and co (the bookstore) to
living with a guy who wants to Manifest Destiny in our room.

i hope the staleness of the facts is the only reason my writing feels
so flat right now.

i'm going to try to get back into rhythm.

-----------------------------------

' funny. as isolated as i've been at the squat the eight weeks i've
lived here, i play a visible role every thursday evening at the open
show.

if people want to eat, they have to see me. i run the food bar on my own.

it's particularly amusing because people here have taken so little
time to approach me for any other reason. no one really asks me
anything about myself. as little socializing as parisians on the
street had done with
me before i moved into the squat, i didn't expect things to be quite
like this.

the dynamic is made all the more interesting by the aforementioned prick.

he's trying anything he can to get me out, including turning
squat-wide opinion against me by fabricating complaints. i've been
given mixed indications as to what would happen if our staying was
voted on by the entire permanent membership.

--------------------------------

i recently became unemployed again for lack of papers, but, i must
say, those four months as tour guide were quite the ride.

i went from having a hard time imagining i'd ever memorize four hours
worth of talking to perhaps believing i might be able to write and
perform a one-person show.

despite the fact that i realized it wasn't that difficult to get
everything memorized, my first two months, i had to develop a style
that suited my personality and also work on some of the material to
make a narrative that really engaged people.

at this company, a guide's job performance had subjective (mystery
shoppers) and objective
(repeat customers) measures. it was one thing to get good reviews
from individuals...but my numbers
reinforced the idea that i was doing something that went beyond what
most people had done with it.

the formula would take a bit to explain, but let's work with the
actual weekly numbers that measured each guide's work.

the company was content if you hit 20. happy if you consistently hit
30. very good guides often hit 40. the most i ever saw in my four
months of weekly numbers was one guide hit 74 one week and another hit 76
another week.

my last seven weeks on the job, before losing it to a lack of papers,
my numbers read:

67
67
81
57 on a particularly rain-drenched week
90
66
72

when i was taken off the roster for lack of papers, the boss in
berlin'd already told my boss in paris that the paris team was the
best of all the company's offices and also asked her what i was doing
to achieve numbers so much higher than everyone else every week.

for once, i had a job where my effectiveness couldn't be denied. over
my 51 months as a nanny, i
was constantly hassled and scapegoated.....

i can't bring myself to keep writing about this right now.

' hope i can regain momentum soon.

----------------------------------------------------

so, if i am asked to leave the squat tomorrow, i've got to figure some
things out.

do i stick around france to learn this language before i leave? do i
try to develop relationships with actual french people, few of whom
i've met and really connected with?

do i head to the countryside for some sun and fruit-picking with some
farmer who'll teach me french in a more, as parisians might put it in
a fit of politeness, "interesting" accent.

should i just accept the fact i haven't learned this language and head
off to asia? or dubai?

this language experiment is particularly puzzling. i'm kind-a trying
to pick the language up by just talking to people, rather than opening
a book. i struggle with whether i should abort the project and get
more practical by learning off the page.

i still can't stomach the idea of leaving paris without having made a
bona fide french friend.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

rely on squats to turn governing systems on their heads.

so, at the squat meeting, members asked me how much longer i planned
to stay. i told them i'd stay as long as the will of the collective
dictated.

they told me the collective isn't my mother, that it will not decide for me.

..in essence, that i need to decide whether i want to be there and
impress upon the collective the fact that i'm going to be there.

if this doesn't make sense, don't worry; you're not lost.

many people at the squat aren't crazy about the fact i don't speak
french......and i'm not blonde and female like the other person here
who doesn't speak french.....and, not surprisingly, those two factors
conspire to keep people from actually getting to know me, creating a
dynamic where i'm sort of shrouded in mystery because no one talks to
me long enough (in english nor in my slow french) to know anything
about me. in conversation with one another, i'm fairly certain they
refer to me as "le cubain."

...which means i don't really have a person who's invested in going to
bat for me when my status is in question. i kind-a embrace being at
the mercy of the collective and imposing my will only when the scales
need very slight tipping.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

it's getting harder and harder to justify my staying in paris. i do
enjoy my window into life at this squat, but i do find this city cold
in ways i'm equipped to choose not to take right now. there's just so
much world out there. i've been here almost nine months.

i think part of what keeps me here is the image of the conversations
i'd have at my next stop, the ones where people would ask me why i
didn't learn french while here.

i get it. it's wonderful and sexy and impressive to learn languages.

....but so much of what i bring to the world has to do with using
language at a high level, twisting and turning and rearranging and
melting it. i've realized over the years that i often don't say what
people expect. i quite often find myself in situations where i say
something and the person is reacting as though they think i said
something altogether different. for some reason, for better or worse,
i tend to be complicated--or at least the things i do and say tend
not to be expected. i have these kinds of exchanges with great frequency
even in english with french people who've studied english for years.

these kinds of exchanges lend the impression that i'd have to get
really, really good with french to ever feel like myself when using
it.

how useful is a language if i can't use it to say the most important
things, to convey less evident meaning......and do i think french and
its utility is worth the kind of investment i'd need to make (not just
in time, but also in the opportunity costs measured in my age and
relative loneliness) to really master it?

and, again, when am i really going to use it?

-----------------------------------------------

most bakeries here have a little plastic dish in front of the
cashier. the sole purpose of this dish is to give the cashier something
to put the money on so that s/he doesn't have to hand it to you.

-----------------------------------------------


i'm 56 stories above paris, in a restaurant surrounded by views of
paris, in it's bathroom, sitting on it's toilet's lid, with a

computer resting on my lap.

that's right: i'm killing time before a "wine dating" session, in
french. it's part of my "sommelier" training.

in an effort to look presentable before the founder of the company, i
was able to iron candle wax off my clothes.

the wax comes from candles.

the candles were used to light my way through the catacombs.

the catacombs are an intricate system of quarries and tunnels dug
under paris mostly for the mining of various substances, most

notably limestone for those big, iconic parisian buildings.

parts of the catacombs were used for storing bones from an overflowing
cemetery in the 19th century, but that's only the

touristy part.

the rest of the network lies inaccessible to the general public, of
course enticing the overly curious to explore them.

do you see where this is going?

of course, it appears that the police, while legally expected to
arrest trespassers into the catacombs, actually sees us "cataphiles"
as a benign presence because keeping people randomly moving through
these tunnels helps prevent the infestation of, for instance, drug
stockpiles and rackets.

i just wish i knew how to get sludge off my coat when i have a job interview.

-------------------

i'm glad leeks are such a hearty vegetable.

every tuesday at the squat we do what we call a 'recup', short for
'récupération' of produce from a nearby outdoor market. we

then wash this produce meticulously and use it for the
pay-what-you-can/want food bar at our open show, an open-mic of sorts.

the food bar has really been my saving grace.

my first couple months at the squat, the preparation of the food was
largely steered by a korean lady who poured a lot of

herself into a squat in which she didn't even live. when i asked
marrion why she gave so much, she would tell me it was her

personal 'project.' marrion's benevolence eventually ran out,
however, because she lost money on the bar a few weeks in a row

and decided to take a break from this aspect of the squat for a while
and focus on other projects.

that first thursday open show without marrion was a little
nerve-wracking for me because, while running the bar had become my

niche, orchestrating the amounts of cooking we had to do, using those
recup-ed fruits and vegetables, to supply the bar as

deftly as marrion had was another story altogether.

it all worked out, though, and, at the end of the night, i was the one
left holding the rattling contribution can full of coins

people had slipped in it for the food.

suddenly, i was steering this ship.

i've decided to introduce alternative grains and health-supportive
foods with little street cred, namely the quinoa and

speltberries of the last two weeks.

this is the sort-a facts-on-the-ground development that's been so
emblematic of this squatting experience, if not most.

-------------------------------------

attractive woman. check.

lebanese guy. check.

useful elements on any recup team, as the recup involves not only
picking produce up off the ground, but also encouraging the

generosity of produce vendors who're disproportionately male and
arabic-speaking.

-------------------------------------

it's 5:10 a.m.

...but i don't want to change into bedwear because i can see my breath
in my bedroom.

i think i need a space heater when it's 0 degrees Celsius and there's
no central heating.

--------------------------------------------

it turns out there is a way to get papers easily as an american. you
have to apply ahead of time from the states and, of

course, be under 25.

-----------------------------------------------

did that guy, at the egging on of his friends, really play the
bagpipes on the metro at 2h?

was that an encore?

and a second encore?

-----------------------------------------------

i love sitting at the reception desk of the squat (yes, we have a
reception desk....after all, in another life, our building was a
publishing house for a famous french dictionary brand) at around 1
a.m. when people are walking home after having a couple drinks and

taking the last metro. our exterior walls are covered in street art,
including the wheatpasted inkings of "TITIFROMPARIS," or

Frank as this artist with a workshop in our squat introduced himself to me.

of course, one of frank's friends, an artist by the name "The Dude
Company," not knowing our neighbor to the left, as it were, is a

building owned by the chinese government, posted a stencil of the
dalai lama inches away from their building. political speech

within the bounds of decency, yes, but the squat doesn't need
neighbors complaining about it if it hopes to stay in the good

graces of the mairie, roughly the town/borough hall.

i hear the stencilwork will be taken down by The Dude Company tomorrow.

-----------------------------------------------

jus frais de choucroute.

that's right. the stars aligned for me today.

in my search of a glass bottle to carry around and refill, in
avoidance of potentially leaching plastic, i found one just the size i
needed for the paris winter....and it happened to be filled with
organic, biodynamically-farmed (and only in france) choucroute water.
choucroute is what most of the world calls 'sauerkraut.' Domaine
Bingert, a farm in alsace, is actually bottling the excess water from
choucroute fermentation for me to enjoy this winter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

god bless PICARD for letting me duck in and warm my fingers when the
paris winter when composing text messages (sms) in the paris winter
gets to be too much.

who'd expect so much warmth in a frozen food store?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

so, apparently, the squat's fate is to be formally settled in court as
soon as january 6, about three weeks from now, meaning that, from that
day, the police is likely to be legally vested with the power to
evacuate us.

i've asked a number of the members here whether they're concerned, and
they don't think there's any way we'll be out before march and likely
not for another year or two.

of course, one guy said i personally need to be concerned about the
next couple days because a member of the squat has been getting into
fights, and the police is now looking for him in connection with a
fight outside the squat last week. our connections at the local
precinct have told us that, if this guy doesn't report to the precinct
within 48 hours, the police is going to come and look for him in the
squat, which is, of course, less than ideal for me because i don't
have papers to be here.

----------------------------------------------------------------

you know, my old roommate was moved to another room a couple weeks ago.

in conversation with someone at the squat a couple days ago, i learned
that, since that decision was made, some people have voiced the fact
that they really hadn't made much effort to talk to or get to know me,
that if i wasn't integrated, they bore some blame.

since then, i have noticed a little bit more effort.....of course, my
french has also approached conversational since losing my job, so it's
hard to tell whether it's that i can say more or whether people are
really making a point of stopping for a second and trying harder to
communicate with me.

just today, i got a tutorial from a fellow squatter on the fact that i
shouldn't greet people every time i see them in the day. there's a
protocol and the progression goes from 'bonjour' the first time to
ignoring by the third time in the day. i'm still not sure i'm suave
enough to pull off the wink that's appropriate for the second
encounter.

-------------------------------------------

' nice of those france telecom workers to open that manhole this morning to retrieve abandoned, decades-old copper phone wire for the company to sell.

their flashlights didn't look all that promising, of course. we thought they might've been police and quickly and quietly retreated out of view. our eventual approach, however, made it clear they were just hardhats starting their workday.

they must've known that, after having spent six hours underground, we weren't looking forward to the 30 minutes of creeping we had left to get to the exit.

i doubt the kids we saw bundled up in purple on their way to school knew why we'd emerged from that manhole.

--------------------------------------------

so, it's december 20th, and i still don't know what i'm doing those days everyone seems to want to get together, you know, the 24th, 25th, and 31st.

i'm giving some consideration to joining kalev, a friend of the squat. he's planned, along with a couple friends, to dress up as santa and his twisted elves and ride the metro carrying the limbs of stuffed animals and anything else resembling a toy and bringing people a little cheer, noncommercially (i.e., sans hat to pass around for donations).

---------------------------------------------

so, do i just hurry up and learn french so that i can get to germany?

perhaps the grass is indeed always greener, but i've really developed a great deal of sympathy for the neighbor to the east. maybe it's my inveterate, if hardly unusual, tendency to pull for the underdog.

so often the french think of germans as boring....and i have to say.......the germans i meet are disproportionately nice......and their capital is one of the nodes of the emerging art world in a way that paris hasn't been in a while, our work at the squat notwithstanding.

....and i feel an acute sympathy for a couple of generations of people that've grown up with an ingrained sense of guilt for what their grandparents did....

...and then there's all that engineering.

....and all the respect i hear about for people around them, something i find sorely lacking in this city.

i was watching 'goodbye lenin' with a couchsurfer from saxony, in the former east germany. she lived through the transition captured in the movie......and watching it just reminded me that, all the while i'm chronically annoyed by paris, there's a place with much more recent history and nicer people right next door.

....but, well, joke as i may about the squat's role in the art world, i do feel like we're doing something important for this city, bringing a little berlin to it one could say. (' brings to mind the dilemma of joining a team built to win or making a losing team a winner.)

maybe i just need to start watching movies about paris to make me appreciate it.

----------------------------------------------

you know, of the french i've met in paris, my favorite is chantal, one of my private english students. she's a seasoned clinician-researcher in bipolar disorder. charmingly self-effacing. it doesn't hurt that she makes fun of parisians with me. ...nor that she gives me the sense of accomplishment (missing since i stopped being a tour guide) whenever i hear her speak english. when i met her a few months ago, she struggled through an hour of conversation. about two months later, we had a seven-hour bonding session. (if people knew the things i get emotional over, they'd think i was crazier than they already do.)

i frequently make her laugh and smile.

....but, when i get to her apartment to begin our lessons, she never opens the door with a smile. ' always a neutral expression.

the smiles come only later.

i need to earn them every time.

this seems to speak to a contrast in cultures. for the french, one of the points of ridicule when they consider americans is their ebullience.

i've always opted to treat new people like a teacher would a student who starts out with an A and works to keep it. smile and be kind 'til you're given a reason not to.

the lack of smiles on the street and in the public sphere here is indicative of a different approach, one i, culturally imperialist as i am, think is lacking.....

...but--you know what?--if it's good enough for chantal, it's good enough for me.

----------------------------------------------

i expected to hear a lot more accordions here, but, with the rare exception, the music i hear on the street is anglophone.

i don't care how uncool you think james blunt is. he gets me through my trips to Monoprix.

----------------------------------------------

how is the word for 'salad dressing' in french just 'sauce' (the same word that's used for what is 'sauce' in english)? aren't the french known for specificity? (see: julienne, batonnet, allumette)

----------------------------------------------

maybe i'm too hard on parisians, but a couple days ago, to explain how unpleasant the natives of her city can be, a parisian pointed out the humor in the fact that, whenever parisians travel to other places, they return talking about how nice the people there were.

----------------------------------------------

stop telling me to get a french girlfriend to improve my french! fuck!