i'm going to try something a little different.

a snapshot of my life a few months ago.

______________________________________

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.

With all due respect to Garrison Keillor, I suppose if you were going to know one thing about me, I'd want it to be that I'm not the kind of person who aspires to friendships where, after hanging out, one or the other person feels the need to say, "Keep in touch."