Robin to me on the phone three seconds ago:
"Oh choomy, I don't really think you're a fascist." - We started talking about recently freed Ingrid Betancourt. Somewhere from hostages in Columbia we got to starvation in Africa and I tried to explain to him that I don't necessarily agree with foreign aid, especially with its current system of perpetuating the problems while effectually solving none (except imminent death). He took problem with my stance, but quickly backed up and said the best thing I've heard all day (about him not thinking I'm a fascist).
Yesterday at the park:
"Ma culotte est tombée... oooh la la." - The cutest two year old boy I ever met. We built a "maison magique" out of sticks. He redeemed my faith that one day I would like to have children.
OK, so to start, a response to a couple comments:
1) I did spend April 16 curled up in bed, lying prostrate the entire day because I could not bear to be with my (now) 34 year old aunt Mel, Christ. But hey, no one on the internet superhighway needed to know that.
2) I'm pretty sure Saint Patrick's Day this year was celebrated on the 19th of March (at least in Europe) because the Catholic church wanted people to get drunk after the 17th, which was some religious holiday. But really, hell if I know. I barely remember my birthday; I always want to say it's the 7th of February because 7 is my lucky number and well... the 6th of February? Unremarkable numberness. Also, things like Christmas and Easter, I always need a calendar to figure out that nonsense.
SO.... TONIGHT, the concert I've been waiting all spring, maybe even all year for: THE COUNTING CROWS.
Regard:
"Adrian Duritz" Haha...
BUT I must say that his douche level seems to have reached epic proportions and maybe the misnomer is deserved? The whole CD "Saturday nights and Sunday Mornings" is essentially him bragging about banging skinny girls. Yes, the phrase "skinny girls" is used... probably like 20 times. No shit.
"Skinny girls who drink champagne and take me on their knees again" (1492)
"Oh, we're gonna get drunk, find us some skinny girls, and go street walking. Street walking, baby!" (Los Angeles) And then he mumbles, "Ah man, it's a
really good place to find yourself a taco."
[the above are just the quotes i can rattle off the top of my head]
During the press for the tour he also complained (a lot) about being depressed while writing the CD, etc. It's like... now that he's 40something, he has lost any hint of subtlety. Anyone who ever actually listened to a Counting Crows song understood homeboy has some demons. There was once a point when I would've sold myself into a summer's worth of slavery to be his ladyfriend. He's clearly lost his... je ne sais quoi. BUT I'm still going to see them in concert, even paying euros to see his ass. Evidently there's still something.
I just hope he never matches this:
If we posit that John Mayer is the highest echelon of douchitude, red, then Mr. Duritz is probably hovering around the yellow-orange line. He still has hope, but man, if he even starts trying to speak in bullshit French about skinny girls tonight, I'm turning in my Counting Crows fan badge. It's bad enough there's this terrible song on the new CD called "Le ballet d'or."
Interesing note: In the above picture, Mayer is looking into the paparazzo lens saying, "I'm fucking Jennifer Aniston." It doesn't get douchier than that, especially considering he's been blogging about hating paparrazzi. BUT Adam Duritz once dated Jenny Aniston (AND Courtney Cox, "Monkey" is supposedly about her and she was in the "Long December" video), so maybe, just maybe I never truly saw the douchitude until now?? Ahhh shizz.
The first couple of weeks of April were spent tooling around gay Paree doing the typical: drinking, taking taxis, and eating kebab. Ok, not so much of either of those actually happened, but I don't have any pictures besides the ones I posted earlier about food. I think my mom's trip to Paris/London is most easily told in two parts: Paris-almost London, London-end of Paris.
April 18 -- My mom arrived. She and Carleigh were exhausted from jetlag, so they slept it off and we spent the night playing Monopoly with the kids.
April 19 -- Bright and early-ish we headed off to Giverny and Versailles with Robin.
Then I thought it would be a really great idea if we climbed the little hill across from the Monet property. It was an ok idea.
In Versailles we were hungry, and as Americans, ate pizza. During our meal, there was a parade of people dressed like this:
Inside the Chateau de Versailles.
April 20 -- Woke up at a reasonable hour and went to check out the Eiffle Tower.
Because my sister is impossibly American, she insisted we eat "American" food for dinner. She wanted pizza again but both my mom and I objected. I figured: why not burgers? So we went to Coffee Parisien and I wrote a little bit about it for my aunt's blog about Burgers in the Berkshires.
April 21 -- Woke up bright and early and hit up L'arc de Triomphe. I waited for my mom and sister before going on any of these siteseeing missions, because I knew I'd want to kill myself if I were to do them twice. We probably did more things in this day than in any other. Maybe except for our London not really doing anything properly, but doing everything.
From L'arc we headed off to Notre Dame.
After Notre Dame, we headed off to the Saint Michel area to find some food. Carleigh insisted upon Italian and was disappointed with her pasta, envying my canard and mashed potatoes. She ended up eating most of my food.
For dessert we walked over to Odeon and ate at my favorite creperie:
Yeah, I pretty much try to keep my food intake to just places with doors.
Then we headed off to Saint-Sulpice and looked at the fake "Rose Line." (Yes, my mom reads Dan Brown)
On our way back home to pick up a roasted chicken and potatoes to be mashed, we spotted this Russian-looking church, just in my neighborhood. A perfect reason why I love Paris.
We called it an early night because we had a super early flight out the next day to London.
So last week in March, Lee and I headed off to La Marche des Puces. I bought a couple little trinkets.
Of course I didn't need either of these things, and at Paris antique shop prices, I really didn't need these things... but I just couldn't help myself!!
And then on April 1, I saw State Radio at La Fleche d'or. They killed. The audience didn't appreciate them. Totally stupid Parisien trendster f'cks. The scensters were there for this band:
I didn't realize you could take pictures, so I didn't bring my camera. No one else in the history of the internet superhighway took pictures/video that evening. Soooo... here's just a nice little clippy do of a State Radio song predominately used on TV. And not even basic cable: Showtime.
Weeds has good music most of the time. The show also introduced me to Jenny Owen Youngs and her "F*ck was I thinking" track, which is quite good.
March 19 - Also known as St. Patty's Day. I had the worst headache ever. All day long. Light sensitive, crippled. It had been the night before that... destroyed any traces of capability I normally feel. I wrote something in my journal, about how the pain of being sober, reeling from drinking too much, can be life-affirming and provide such clarity of thought. Maybe it's not for the act of being intoxicated, but the pain of recovering from drinking too much that I do it. Nothing in a shade of grey does anything, sometimes. I believe I had to babysit, and I stayed home. So in fact, I never enjoyed St. Patty's Day properly.
Leanna and Visiting Laurie, however, did do it up proper. Somehow they met up with Ulysses (who was
once upon a time hot) and got him to grab his crotch and say "BALLIN'." I wish I could've been there. Info: Ulysses is from Patagonia and speaks French poorly with a fairly strong Spanish accent. To hear him cry "Ballin'!" while grabbing his... well, you know, would be beyond enormous.
I'm going to be honest with you right now and tell you I remember very little of what happened next/when it happened. I just know some things happened and I have the photographs as evidence. So here's a little rundown.
One night we went to The Lizard Lounge.
Talking nonsense, more than likely.
One night Leanna and I took a trip to some place not in Paris and then we went out to BDF. It rained. We took a lot of pictures.
And then it was Easter.
One thing I may not have mentioned: in order to legally live in France, after filling out your mountains of paperwork and overcoming bureaucracy to the tenth degree, you need to have a physical. Your physical consists of getting an xray (I was top-naked in a room with other people. Real socialist medicine stuff we're talking about here) and telling a doctor that you don't have LE SIDA (AIDS). When it was over, they gave me a dental dam and my carte de sejour.
ANYWHOO, Leanna, because of whatever reason, had her physical sometime in March. You're supposed to have it within a month or two of your arrival. Her xray has a big spot on it. She thought she had cancer. This image is supposed to suggest that no, smoking isn't the cause of cancer, but rather the effect. Xrays cause cancer. Anyway, it was Easter. I think Jesus would've been happy that we celebrated his rise from death with such vigor and intellectual commentary.
And then it was the day after Easter and we learned about this wonderful thing called Jungle Beer. Take tequila flavored (I don't know?) beer, add a shot of rum and some kind of fruit juice and you get this:
After drinking one or two, you too can look just like Mademoiselle Laurie.
And if you end up looking (acting?) like we did, they might just give you free shots, too!
Laurie went home. Our livers were glad.
OK: I know, I know. Reading "Uber jealous" as a header every time you come to look at my blog gets really tedious and starts to influence your liking of both aforementioned words. I get it.
So a couple of things before I actually commit to looking through my planner/journal and recount the past few months...
I love this song. If I could have someone follow me around with a boombox blasting one song, it would be this one. iPod? No, too much effort, carrying it around and everything. Also, it doesn't have the same quality of sound when you listen to it just in your ears. It needs to reverberate off books and furniture. The drummer sings the chorus, which is just an added quirky bonus. "And the ladies sing..."
Pretty sure I found out what true love is this morning. I've been pretty good (well, with the exception of every now and then when I need to let my body get what it wants) about not eating a hundred baguettes/swimming at least an hour each day. But last night I had a little bit of a food crisis (ie somehow I got shitfaced from one glass of wine and had eaten Cameroonian food. Robin is convinced (?) we were drugged) and decided that I needed to detox this morning. Oh, so did I eat some saltines or maybe a slice of "American" bread? No. I opted for a Viennoise pepites and almost slapped myself across the face for not trying this delicious treat earlier.
iTunes just started playing "Luka." I think I need to go and take care of that... oh, and of course, make lunch, etc.
I have one week of work left. I am incredibly happysad. Like completely manic.
Well, I'll be back later.
...that my choom got to see Rage Against the Machine last night!! I must content myself with the idea that they're going to continue touring because money seems to be everything (even for pseudo-Communists) and that I'll get to see them some day.
I never saw this video before, had only downloaded the mp3 after the initial explosion of sharing media on the internet circa 1996? Very early Ben Lee. Totally adorable (and simultaneously awesome). I adore this example of... juvenile male jealousy.
"He's got six different flannel shirts
Airwalks, not thongs
He even understands the words to Pavement songs"
And so dated. Man, I had me some Airwalk's. I remember them now as being really bulky. A tan-brown mess of a shoe. But they were cool, for a hot minute. And knowing my luck with "cool" things, I probably got them after the rush, around the same time that everyone stopped wearing Jinko jeans. (I just did an extensive search of the internet superhighway for an image and came up with nothing. Surely someone has a picture of him/herself with Kool-Aid dyed hair, enormous Adidas tee, and an oversized pair of Jinko's that completely covered their Airwalk's or Sketcher's?!)
It's another rainy day in Paris. I did my obligatory swimming, but found myself wanting to linger on the bottom of the pool. So, like the creepiest creeper, I hid on the bottom of the pool and practiced holding my breath while watching middle-elderly people do the breast stroke. Now I sit in the kitchen waiting for the appropriate time to fetch "the kid."
This year's Eurovision song is:
I've been trying to think of things that are most starkly different -- America vs. France -- and I think that one of the most noticeable is that the French seem much more sensitive to things (light, dark, heat, cold... fashion) than Americans. They're also much more perturbed by maladies and upon catching the flu, most Frenchies go to the doctor. Yes. To the doctor. For a flu. They get a prescription (which isn't usually necessary as pharmacists would probably recommend the same medicines) and go to one of the 400 million pharmacies located in their town, get better. Just the sheer number of pharmacies suggest that there's something different this side of the Atlantic. These pharmacies aren't like Walgreens or Rite Aid, either. You can just buy stuff to get thin (either diet pills, control underwear, or some other bizarre thing they probably keep behind the counter), medicines, and sometimes mouth wash. But the last only if you're very, very lucky and pretend to be rinsing your mouth.
You often will hear people crying that it's very hot or very cold when there's not a very large difference in weather from the other day. They cannot stand to put their hands in hot water. If I were being honest to my Americanism, I would call them pansies, but because I love them all so much, in a very abstract way, we can just leave them described as sensitive.
This is a contest where each European broadcasting union country submits a song and then they all vote for the winner. The European broadcasting union evidently encompasses Russia and like Eastern Europe and in 1980, even Morocco. I personally believe that because Italy no longer competes (preferring to filter money into the San Remo music festival), it shouldn't really called "Eurovision." Or it should be called "France versus the Slavs" because really, that seems to be the competition.
Given the quality and tone of this song, I think it's safe to suggest that Europeans are going to continue being sensitive -- to shitty music sung with a terrible English accent. (And so what if I'm conflating all of "Europe" with France. Just trying to tell a story...)
March is usually the loneliest month. It comes after my birth month which contains such wonderful things as birthday blowouts, Valentine's Day, and usually the peak of snow. Following this, while the snow turns to brown sludge, it's difficult to not meander through March, looking toward the next exciting event. This March seemed to drag, and I must admit, I anxiously awaited the beautiful weather. It's so difficult, though, wishing away the days; although you try to enjoy every minute of every day, sometimes it's hard to not want more.
March 1-12 are unaccounted for. In my winter haze, I just stopped writing things down. At this point I started paying less attention to things like facebook.com and in the internet in general and tried to focus more on being in the present. Unfortunately that left me with very little in the way of remembering my day to day happenings.
I should mention that during the winter I started experimenting with new dinners to make the kids and invented a lovely rice pasta shrimp "thai-chinese-meets-french-ingredients" dish.
March 13 - Leanna and I went out. I believe we had some wine and evidently got lost enough that we needed to take a taxi from wherever we were.
March 14 - Because I am an American and have American TV needs (so cliché), Lee and I regularly watch Grey's Anatomy and Lost at the Friday lunch hour. Every Friday I make lunch for roughly 7 people, so I figured, "what's one more?," and started inviting Leanna to come and eat. We would watch the previous night's episode of Grey's until that whole "writer's strike" debacle happened, and then Lost, when it finally started airing. This afternoon was no different, save the fact that I bought this delicious cappuccino ice cream from my fromagerie. Add a couple of pounds and two happy smiles and…
This night we went to Pop-In and met up with Neuilly Marc, a guy we met in a discothèque one night who appeared to be… well… to have something special. He walked around the place with a cap in his backpocket and bears a resemblance (albeit perhaps slight) to Roy Dupuis. (Except he's thinner and hence has a thinner face and yaddah yaddah yaddah. Let a girl have her funny little ideas…)
March 15 - Leanna and I essentially were ruined women the next morning. For some reason, both of us were entirely out of commission. We languished in bed until maybe 2 PM. I ran to the Franprix to get stuff for pancakes and when I returned, I was greeted by Leanna's entire French "family" playing ping pong in the courtyard. I was truly a hot mess at this point and had a deadly mixture of champagne and white wine fumes oozing from my pores, so I can only imagine what these parents thought. "Déjeuner!" I proclaimed while throwing up my shopping and quickly scurried into Leanna's apartment. They didn’t need to know that our lunch was also our breakfast and that I had only risen from bed mere moments earlier.
Our friend Marc later called to make sure we had made it home safe and extended that he had already gone shopping, visited with his brother, picked up his scooter from across town, ran errands, played tennis, and was on his way to get a thai massage. He sure made us feel worthless.
Saturday night we went to Bar des Familles for a couple of beers and then ate dinner at Hanoi-Paris, a very cheap trendy thai-chineseish restaurant in the Bastille. You can have a full meal with appetizers and a beverage for less than 20 euros. It's pretty stellar and the food is usually good, too. Downfall: unless you get lucky and have one of the two two-person side tables, you must eat like a sardine in a can, squished next to at least two other people.
March 16 - Lee and I ate our lunch at Coffee Parisien and then bought treats and returned to her house to watch some movie, I believe. We were resting up for the arrival of...
March 17 - Our friend Laurie, perhaps the craziest girl on the face of planet earth, arrived in Paris. After language school, Lee and I went to meet her at Porte Maillot. That afternoon we went to Tropical Café to have delicious cheeseburgers and show Laurie what little bit of America is in Paris. That night I had to babysit, while those two girls went crazy on the town.
March 18 - Today was C's birthday and I gave him his little present of a magic 8 "Kermit" ball (my mom had the idea that French people love Kermit?), a pack of both artist-grade charcoal pencils and pastels. That night we went to the James Joyce pub, because I believe the previous night had already been a bit wild and jet lag traveling east is the worst thing ever.
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Recent Comments
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Queen of the Land said:
You forgot to put in your entry for April 16th or is it still too painful? "April 16th - Spent... read more
on And here we have it... -
Queen of the Land said:
Ack! Are you trying to make Jean-O, Grampy, Nana D and all your other Mick relatives cry? ST. PATRICK'S DAY... read more
on March yourself right up there and... -
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cfkane said:
I hate the Eurovision song contest! Last year it interrupted "Life On Mars" this year, "Doctor Who"! BOO! read more
on Europeans are sensitive
on Overheard in Paris