Some things

Some things I saw today
I saw water bubbling out of a drain and gushing down the street. This seems to happen every day. Every day a different drain.

I saw a regular customer of my cafe-bar pass by on the other side of the street wave to Daniel, the cafe-bar owner, and he waved back.

I saw a young man in a suit come into Le Gyozabar by himself and try to sit at the counter, but the ladies in charge of the restaurant said he couldn't because there were two open places and they wanted to keep them open for two customers together. I watched the young man say, "Okay," and go stand by the door and read his book for a while. I saw him come back after 5-10 minutes and ask again, and they still said no. I saw the young man argue a little with them. I saw them apologize but hold firm to their policy. I saw him shake his head and not leave. I saw him stand just outside the door reading his book. When I got up to leave 10 minutes later, no one had been seated in the two seats next to me, and the young man was ordering takeout with another young man.

I saw this:

Au bar

The advantage to having conversations with a group of drunk people in French is that they sometimes forget what you've already talked about (or perhaps your accent is unintelligible and they didn't understand the first time), and you get asked the same questions over again, which gives you the opportunity to practice saying the same things over and over - your age, your profession, what you're currently writing, why you were ensconced in the corner of the bar yesterday busily writing in your journal, what Americans tend to think of the French, etc.

I went to my regular cafe/bar today around 1pm for my daily café au lait. I got my coffee, retreated to a table in the back and began observing my fellow bar-goers/writing in my journal/watching the news on the bar's television. At one point I looked up and met the eye of a 50-something blue-eyed bald man wearing a baseball cap, who gestured and repeated in French until I understood.

"Your eyes are very pretty." He slapped the bicep of the older gentleman beside him with the back of his hand and pointed at me, saying something I couldn't make out.

The older gentleman looked at me. "Yes," he said. "Eyes like the Mediterranean sea."

"Thank you," I said with a warm smile, and went back to writing.

The news: pro-Palestine protests (some violent) followed by sports. Tennis. How can one hold in one's heart simultaneously the grief & outrage assoc. w/ ppl killing ppl alongside that which brings us joy? My heart is not big enough, my feels organs not skilled enuf to recognize & live both simultaneously. After seeing that news segment (signs in French

A la maison

The house is big and beautiful and old, with real marble floors in the foyer and a wood floor in the dining room so warped by time that each footstep falls at different intervals, either sooner or later than one would expect, but never arriving exactly on time.

The house is big and beautiful and old, and it's also cold and damp, with plaster walls that seem to trap the moisture, especially these days, when the sky sporadically spits rain and the sun shows its face for less than half an hour at a time.

And I've started finding the little bugs. Tiny black things with long bodies that wander independently, one on the pages of my journal today, another swimming in my water glass last night. I wonder where they come from and what they are. I wonder how many are crawling on my body, unseen, at this very moment. 

Will they burrow beneath my skin and lay their eggs? Did the one in my water glass lay eggs there that are even now gestating in my abdomen? Will I awake one morning to find myself covered in little black bugs that pour out of the open wounds covering my body? Or will the larvae, once hatched, burrow deeper still into my body, preferring first to feast on moist entrails, consuming my flesh from the inside out?

Only time will tell.

A few observations

Paris, France - 12:52pm local time - 59 degrees Fahrenheit - overcast & occasionally drizzly

1. After being in Spain, where if the sunlight doesn't wake you up the heat coming off of it will, it's really hard to get up at 8am when it's cloudy and cold. (Read: I got up at 11am today.)
2. Yesterday I walked from the apartment to the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. To get there I walked past the Sacre Coeur area. I knew I'd officially left Sacre Coeur territory and entered Montmartre when the souvenir shops gave way to sex shops.
   
3. The neighborhood I'm staying in: In the nearest streets to the south and west of the apartment there are a lot of African and Middle Eastern people. In the streets the ratio of men to women seems to be about 10:1. In most of the cafes and bars, the clientele is 100% male. I passed by one store/cafe where the clientele was 100% female. Today I explored to the northeast and was delighted to find a bunch of Chinese grocery stores and restaurants only a block or two over.
4. This morning I chatted for a bit with Flora, my Airbnb host. It turns out she's a professional photographer. She has two books ready to be printed but she can't find a publisher because there isn't a lot of money available in France right now to support the arts and printing books of photography is expensive, and these days they choose to undertake projects only from the same well-known photographers whose books they know they can sell. One of the books is about maternity - the good, the bad and the ugly of pregnancy and motherhood. The other book is a love story told in three settings: Tasmania (where the love ignites), Smhrshuhblerg (didn't quite catch the name here), and Japan. Last winter (2013) she was an Artist in Residence in Quebec. Not Montreal - it was a rural area. There will be an exposition of her photographs from her time there...soon? (I think I overheard her 9 yr old son on the phone saying she was going to Canada in August.) The theme of her exposition: frozen. These photos could tell the final part of aforementioned love story, where the love and the people are frozen. At least, this is all what I *think* she said. My French isn't great.
5. I had forgotten how to find a decently priced cup of coffee in Paris. From being in Spain, I was already used to the idea that you pay more to sit out on the terrace/patio than you pay to be inside, but I'd forgotten that in Paris you also pay more to sit at a table than you do to stand at the bar. I'd forgotten that any cafe/restaurant with a terrace will be more expensive - inside or out - than a cafe/restaurant without a terrace. I'd forgotten that you pay more for a coffee at a place on a main street than you do at a place on a little side street. So many rules! Yesterday I found a place that only charges €1,20 for a cafe au lait at the bar, which was like striking gold. The only issue was I didn't feel particularly welcome there; I think it's one of those places that doesn't have a lot of female clientele. Today I found a place just a couple streets over where I felt very comfortable/welcome - I think with time I could get some good French practice in there - but the cafe au lait was €2,50 at the bar because the place is on a main street. Do I go for the price or the atmosphere? Tricky. Very tricky.